The final three rounds of the preliminary stage of the Julius Baer Generation Cup were played today (okay, yesterday), and going into the last round almost everything was still up for grabs. Magnus Carlsen, Arjun Erigaisi, Vincent Keymer and (I think) Le Quang Liem were in; Boris Gelfand, Baskaran Adhiban and Ivan Saric were out. That left nine players competing for the final four spots (eight qualifiers from the field of 16), and there was one nightmare scenario where as many as six players could have been tied for 6th-11th, with three going forward and three being eliminated. As it turned out, the tie straddling the boundary involved only three players, with Christopher Yoo and Levon Aronian getting in and Anish Giri letting left out.
Let’s start from the top of the heap: Carlsen finished with three straight wins on the last day (and five straight wins overall), though his last victory was more than a little shaky. His final score of 34/45 was apparently the best preliminary score in the history of the Meltwater Tour, made even more impressive if we ignore the Niemann pseudo-game and the psychological toll the controversy is probably taking on him. No matter how well he can compartmentalize his chess from the circus, it’s hard to believe that it hasn’t had any adverse effects on him, so it was a remarkable accomplishment even by his standards.
After the prelims, Carlsen submitted to his first interview since before the Sinquefield Cup controversy. To her great credit, Kaja Snare very boldly went straight to the scandal issue, and kept on digging despite Carlsen’s attempts to stick to non-answers. And she succeeded in extracting a few nuggets! First, he said that Max Dlugy (an American GM and former World Junior champion who came here from Russia as a youngster) had done a “great job” with Niemann. Did he mean it sincerely, or is he implying that Dlugy had some part in the chicanery everyone thinks Carlsen believes Niemann is guilty of? (I assume chess Twitter will blow up over this one.)
Second, he gave Zagreb 2019 as an example of another occasion when he managed to successfully compartmentalize at an event. Does anyone remember what was going on then?
Third, he promised to make a statement - presumably a substantive statement - after the tournament. I took this to mean right after the tournament or very soon afterwards, so hopefully the situation will be resolved soon, one way or another.
Moving on to the second place finisher, Arjun Erigaisi fell apart on the last day. It didn’t matter for qualification - even with losses in the last two rounds he still took second. Still, it’s not a good way to finish up, heading into the knockout rounds.
Hans Niemann took third. He lost with White to Ivan Saric in round 13, but no matter: he beat Vasyl Ivanchuk in round 14 and crushed Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the last round to complete a successful preliminary stage. That said, if he had lost the game with Carlsen he would have been a part of the tie for the last qualifying spot, though given his 2-1 score against the other players in the tie (wins against Yoo and Aronian, a loss to Giri) he would have qualified anyway. Note too that if he had lost his last-round game, he would have been a part of the tie, with the same outcome. One bright spot of Niemann’s taking third is that he’s in the opposite bracket from Carlsen, so they won’t play in the knockout stage prior to the final. The fear, of course, is that Carlsen will refuse to play him there as well, so this scenario creates the fewest opportunities for the tournament to suffer further disruptions.
Keymer entered the last round in third, and would have finished in second had he converted his winning advantage against Carlsen. Instead, he wound up tied for 4th-5th with Praggnanandhaa, who finished ahead of him on tiebreaks. They’ll play in the quarterfinals.
As for Praggnanandhaa, he entered the last round tied with Jan-Krzysztof Duda for 6th-7th with 20 points apiece, while four players were tied for the final qualifying place: Navara, Yoo, Aronian, and Giri each had 18 points. (Remember, the event used 3-1-0 scoring in the prelims.) Pragg defeated Saric convincingly to punch his ticket, but Duda’s loss to Niemann eliminated him from the tournament.
A win for Navara with White against Gelfand, mired in last place, probably would have resulted in Navara’s qualification. Surprisingly, he only managed a draw - and with difficulty. He’s out.
Yoo had troubles against Le Quang Liem, sitting on the worse side of a drawish position. He was even losing at one moment, but when Le lost the thread of the game Yoo pounced, outplaying Le to achieve a winning ending, which he confidently converted.
Aronian needed a win and some help to qualify, and he got both. Sticking to the luck needed in his last round game, he was first winning, then losing against Ivanchuk, but the game seemed to be headed for a draw. Fortunately for Aronian, Ivanchuk got short of time at the same time that he lost his sense of danger, and Aronian swindled a victory to achieve the final spot in the quarterfinals.
As for Giri, he had to win, on demand and with the black pieces against the player sitting in second place. And he did it, winning in style! Unfortunately, he needed one last bit of help, either from Le or Ivanchuk, and he didn’t get it.
Remarkably, five teenagers - all five teenagers - qualified for the quarterfinals. Four of them are paired with each other, so we’re guaranteed to have at least two teens in the semis. Yoo’s qualification is the most surprising, but it’s a fine achievement by all of them. In fact, the achievement is even more impressive, as the other four teens finished in second through fifth place, trailing only the World Champion.
Here’s a big batch of games from the last day, including all of the last-round games. And now, on to the quarter-finals, which have these pairings (given in bracket order, so that the winner of the first match plays the winner of the second and the winner of the third plays the winner of the fourth):
Carlsen - Aronian
Praggnanandhaa - Keymer
Niemann - Le
Erigaisi - Yoo
Why would the circus have an adverse effect on Carlsen? He seems to be perfectly happy in his role (non-answers, i.e. insinuations that may not be legally relevant, are part of it), and he still gets lots of fan support.
To answer your questions: According to chess24, Dlugy was "accused of cheating on chess.com in the past". Apparently this refers to a Titled Tuesday event in April 2017 where Dlugy was seemingly disqualified.
Again quoting chess24, 2019 refers to "facing an unprecedented wave of criticism in Norway over his attempts to get the Norwegian Chess Federation to accept sponsorship from a gambling company". Illegal by Norwegian law, and Carlsen's trick had been to suddenly found a chess club with several hundred members in order to manipulate results of a Norwegian federation election (number of votes per club depended on number of members). Carlsen still lost this democratic election and then officially left the Norwegian Chess federation (while still representing Norway in some team events).