Hans Niemann's five-day match against Anish Giri began on Wednesday in Utrecht, part of a series of matches against three world-class players. The match against Giri will be followed by competitions against Nikita Vitiugov (14-18 August) in London and Etienne Bacrot (20-21 August) in Paris.

The matches are played in the disciplines of blitz, classical and rapid chess and are scored differently. The first section is a blitz match over 12 games. The blitz games are simply scored with 1 point for the winner. Six classical games on the following two match days, i.e. two games per day, grant 3 points each. Six rapid chess games on the last day gran 2 points each. An exhausting programme!

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The first day of the competition and the first discipline went to Hans Niemann. He won the blitz match convincingly with an 8-4 score.

Niemann took the lead in the first game after winning an endgame with rook and knight against rook and bishop. Anish Giri equalised with a win in game two. Niemann had miscalculated in the rook ending and allowed the transition to a pawn ending, which was lost for him.

In the third game, Giri was a pawn up in an endgame with queens and bishops, but was unable to convert the material advantage into a win - however, Niemann seems to have lost the game on time.

Game four began like game two with the Schara-Hennig Gambit and was equalised for a long time. In the endgame, Giri overlooked a tactical threat and lost in a few moves after his mistake. The fifth game ended in a draw.

In game six, Giri lost an exchange with white out of a Queen's Indian Opening, and then also lost the following endgame. In the seventh game, Hans Niemann won an endgame with rook and bishop against rook and knight with an extra pawn and took a 5-2 lead.

Two draws followed. Giri then celebrated a clean win in the tenth game and reduced the score to 5½-4½. In the eleventh game, Giri got into a bad position with black in the Sicilian Moscow Variation and had to resign on move 22 after a combination with a queen sacrifice. The twelfth game also went to Niemann for a final score of 7½-4½.

All games - Blitz

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