FTX Crypto Cup: Caruana wins the prelims, Carlsen and Nepo qualify

by Klaus Besenthal
5/26/2021 – The preliminaries of the FTX Crypto Cup ended on Tuesday, with eight of the sixteen players qualifying to the quarterfinals. Fabiano Caruana was the top scorer in the round robin, while Magnus Carlsen only managed to qualify at the last minute, after defeating Teimour Radjabov on demand in the last round. Anish Giri, Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wesley So, Teimour Radjabov and Ian Nepomniachtchi also made it through.
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FTX Crypto Cup

The preliminaries have divided the original field of sixteen players into two halves: the players on the left side of the graphic move on to the quarterfinals, while those on the right side are eliminated from the competition

Referring to Carlsen’s decisive victory against Radjabov in the last round, Leon Watson wrote in his press release: “Carlsen got the vital point he needed to save the day in a nerve-jangling final round against Airthings Masters champ Teimour Radjabov”.

 

Karsten Müller: The best endgames from day 3

In Round 11 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave showed against Ian Nepomniachtchi that he has mastered something that even grandmasters occasionally struggle with: mating with bishop and knight!

 

Round 12, Mamedyarov vs. Giri: connected passed pawns are a sharp weapon in the endgame!

 

Again Round 12, Radjabov vs. Ding: pawn endings must be calculated precisely!

 

Knockout bracket

All games - Preliminaries

 

Links

Klaus Besenthal is computer scientist, has followed and still follows the chess scene avidly since 1972 and since then has also regularly played in tournaments.

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