FTX Crypto Cup, Round 6

Carlsen extends his lead but hasn't clinched.

When it comes to rapid games, one must often choose between excitement and good games, but today we had both. There was plenty of drama in the event as well, with the matches involving the top three all going to a blitz playoff.

Entering the 6th round of the FTX Crypto Cup Magnus Carlsen led with 13 points, with Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa in second with 12 and Alireza Firouzja in third with 11. Carlsen was paired with Firouzja, while Pragg’s opponent was Jan-Krzysztof Duda. (Remember that the matches are scored as follows: three points for the winner and zero for the loser if someone wins the best-of-four rapid games; if it goes to a blitz tiebreak [or further, to an Armageddon game] the match winner gets two points while the loser gets a single point.)

Starting with Carlsen-Firouzja, Firouzja won game one with White, beating the World Champion as if Carlsen were a child. (The way kids play nowadays, that’s not saying as much as it used to. In non-figurative speech, it was a very one-sided victory.) Carlsen struck back with an equally convincing victory in game two, and two draws later it was on to the tiebreaker. In the first game, Firouzja’s 13…Be6? (instead of 13…Ba3) allowed Carlsen to grab the bishop pair, and his dark-squared bishop was a beast. Carlsen dominated from start to finish, but it was almost miraculous that Firouzja lasted as long as he did. Firouzja was well on his way to revenge in the second game, having outfoxed Carlsen in a complicated, tactical middlegame. He was well on his way to converting a technical ending with an extra exchange, but a blunder allowed Carlsen to eventually reach knight vs. rook with all the pawns off the board, which is a routine draw. He thus increased his lead over Firouzja by another point.

Praggnanandhaa also fell another point back, but as he plays Carlsen in the final round, on Sunday, his fate is in his own hands. In short, if Carlsen manages a tiebreak or better, he wins the event; if he loses to Praggnanandhaa, he finishes second, and possibly tied for second if Firouzja wins his match. But we’re getting ahead of the story. Pragg’s match with Duda got off to a terrible start as he lost game 1 with White, and after reaching a drawn ending in game 2 was outplayed and on the verge of a second loss. Fortunately for him, resourceful defense in a queen ending paid off, and he escaped with a draw. Game 3 was another draw, so Pragg had to win with Black in the final rapid game to force a tiebreak…and he did, helped by very poor opening play by Duda, who was somewhere between clearly worst and lost by the end of the opening. The subsequent play wasn’t perfect, but Praggnanandhaa always had the dominant position and was the deserved victor.

The tiebreak…oof. In game 1, Pragg gradually outplayed Duda in an ending, going from what was a near-certain draw to an unquestionably winning position. There were at least two sorts of plans he could go for: a mating attack with 55.b5, intending 56.b6 followed by 57.Rg8+, or rounding up Black’s e-pawn to go two pawns up. Pragg chose the latter plan, and went for it in the worst possible way. His 55.Nd3 aimed at the e5-pawn while preventing 55…Rb2 - that’s good. What was less good was that it removed his king’s only flight square, and Black’s 55…Re2 was mate. In game 2 of the tiebreak, like game 4 of the rapid match, saw Duda offer up another terrible opening with the white pieces, and once again Pragg was seriously better coming out of the opening. This time, however, he was unable to keep the momentum, and Duda gradually crawled back to equality and then took over, winning this game as well.

In the other matches, Le Quang Liem won the first two games with Anish Giri and drew the third to end their match ahead of schedule, while Levon Aronian recovered from a game 1 loss to Hans Niemann to win 2.5-1.5 thanks to wins in games 2 and 4.

Here is a selection of today’s games, and here are tomorrow’s pairings:

Aronian (8) - Firouzja (12)

Le (9) - Niemann (0)

Duda (8) - Giri (7)

Carlsen (15) - Praggnanandhaa (13)