Chess.com Global Chess Championship Quarterfinals
Nakamura, So, Giri, and Sarin make the final four.
Chess.com’s Global Chess Championship has been going on (intermittently) for months, and is finally coming to a conclusion. The quarterfinal matches are over, and the best-of-eight (plus a ninth, Armageddon game as necessary) went like this:
Hikaru Nakamura 5 - Jan-Krzysztof Duda 2
Wesley So 4.5 - Dmitry Andreikin 1.5
Anish Giri 5 - Teimour Radjabov 4
Nihal Sarin 4.5 - Sam Sevian 3.5
Nakamura won the first four games, but lost game 5 with White in the line 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bd7. In most cases, this line is something like a draw offer, but Nakamura may have been torn between a principled, aggressive approach and a safe treatment that would make the draw very likely. He wound up choosing something that was neither fish nor fowl, gaining neither an advantage nor a drawish position, and Duda eventually ground him down. Duda won the next game as well, somehow squeaking out a win in a rook + opposite-colored bishop ending with an extra pawn and all the pawns on the same side of the board. It took 115 moves, but he did it. Nakamura pulled the plug on the comeback, however, with a win in game 7. He’ll play So, who had no trouble getting past Andreikin.
The other semi will be between the two winners who had to struggle. Giri won the Armageddon game with Black to advance, while Sarin had a tough time with Sevian - who wasn’t even supposed to play. He lost to Levon Aronian, 2.5-0.5, in the round of 16, but for some reason Aronian couldn’t play and Sevian stepped in.
The semis are also best-of-eight, and take place on Friday and Saturday; the final will be Sunday and Monday.