Meltwater Finals: Carlsen and Pragg win in Armageddon

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
11/19/2022 – Magnus Carlsen has a 4-point lead with two rounds to go at the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals. The world champion defeated Le Quang Liem in Armageddon, as he remains the big favourite to take the title. Praggnanandhaa beat Jan-Krzysztof Duda, also in Armageddon, while Wesley So and Arjun Erigaisi won their matches ‘in regulation’.
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Pragg beats Duda

Remarkably, six consecutive games in the match between Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Praggnanandhaa finished with wins for the white side — which led to an Armageddon decider. Playing black, Pragg got a draw and thus won the confrontation.

Karsten Müller analysed the very instructive first game of the day, in which Duda showed great technique and a nice trick in a knight ending. 

 
 
 

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Carlsen no longer perfect, beats Le in tiebreaks

After beating Le Quang Liem in Armageddon, Magnus Carlsen confessed that he was hoping to end the tournament with a perfect 21/21 by winning all his matches in the rapid section. Nonetheless, he will win the event with a round to spare if he beats Pragg in rapid on Saturday. The Norwaegian already secured overall victory in the tour with an event to spare.

An endgame wizard, Carlsen demonstrated his ability to handle technical positions by converting a superior ending with queen against rook and knight in the first game of the day. Karsten Müller shared instructive analysis of the endgame.

 
 
 

So dominates Mamedyarov

Wesley So has grabbed 3 points in the last three rounds after a disappointing start with back-to-back losses in the first two days of action. Against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, he got to win by a convincing 3-0 score.

In game 3, Shakh’s queen found herself trapped in the middle of the board.

 

29.Qc3 leaves the black queen without a way to escape — 30.Rf3 is coming! Shakh resigned.

 
 

Arjun defeats Giri

Much like So, Arjun Erigaisi had a subpar start and managed to bounce back in the second half of the tournament. After beating Mamedyarov in round 4, the Indian prodigy inflicted Anish Giri’s third consecutive loss to leapfrog his Dutch colleague in the standings.

Sagar Shah, from ChessBase India, analysed the match.

 
 

Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals 2022Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals 2022

Let our authors show you how Carlsen tailored his openings to be able to outplay his opponents strategically in the middlegame or to obtain an enduring advantage into the endgame.

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Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.