Magnus Carlsen may not have played up to his highest standards, but it was terrific by almost any other human measure. Arjun Erigaisi, his opponent in the final, just didn’t stand a chance. (For now. He’s still young, at 19, and improving rapidly.) Carlsen won their head-to-head game in the preliminary stage, won their first mini-match on day one of the final by a convincing 2.5-0.5 margin, and added another 2-0 beating today to put an end to the tournament. (For those new to the way the Meltwater Tour does things, the mini-match ended at that point, because even if Erigaisi won the last two games he would still lose the overall match 1.5-0.5.)
In the first game, Carlsen played the Pirc and soon obtained a serious and then a winning advantage. Erigaisi played an aggressive line, but didn’t play with the necessary energy to justify his choice of opening. Carlsen let most of his advantage slip away, but Erigaisi had to find a very precise move to save the game. Missing 34.Rd1! he was immediately lost once again, and this time Carlsen kept the door shut.
Game 2 was much cleaner for Carlsen. He outplayed his opponent from start to finish, and none of his inaccuracies was consequential. It was a display of power chess by the champ, and Erigaisi was more of a spectator than a participant in the game. It was easy to forget that Erigaisi is the #19 player in the world (and moving up fast); he looked very mortal today. There’s a reason why Carlsen has been the world’s #1 for a long, long time.
Congratulations to the champ, who not only won this tournament but has a big lead in the overall Meltwater Tour standings. He also raised his Tour rating over 2900, and did so even with the points he threw away with his protest against Hans Niemann.
Speaking of which…Carlsen didn’t say when exactly he would release or make a statement on the Niemann situation, but he said that it would be in the next few days (possibly as soon as tomorrow), and in a bit of a slip he acknowledged (or at least made the transparent implication) that it had to do with cheating. That this was the issue is a surprise to exactly no one, but until that moment Carlsen had never specified a reason for his withdrawal from the Sinquefield Cup or his move 2 resignation against Niemann in this tournament.
And so, the tournament comes to a conclusion; let’s have a look at Carlsen finished things off.