If you like seeing lots of wins, then you’ll have loved the action in round 2 of the Meltwater Tour Finals. Of the 16 games played, only six were drawn, and even the draws were all long and hard-fought. Another interesting stat: six of the ten decisive games were won by Black. It was a very lively round.
Two of the matches finished ahead of schedule. Magnus Carlsen won games 1 and 3 with Black against Arjun Erigaisi to their match 2.5-0.5, but on a game-by-game basis it wasn’t nearly as lopsided as the final score suggests. Erigaisi had plenty of chances to save the first game, while he was much better in the third.
Surprisingly, the other loser of a 2.5-0.5 match was Wesley So. He drew the first game of his match, with Black, against Le Quang Liem, but that was the end of the good news for him and his fans. He was crushed in game 2, and a couple of big errors in the early middlegame sealed his fate in game 3.
Only one match went exactly four games, and that was Jan-Krzysztof Duda’s 2.5-1.5 win over Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Three games were drawn, and the decider came in game two. Duda fought desperately to avoid a draw, and finally managed to bamboozle Mamedyarov, leading to a winning queen and knight ending. Duda, like Carlsen, has won his matches in rounds 1 and 2.
For that matter, Anish Giri has as well, but there are better and worse ways to win matches. If one wins the match within the four-game framework, that player gets three points and the loser gets none. If it takes a playoff to win, however, then the winner gets two points and the loser gets one. Carlsen and Duda therefore have 6-0 scores, while Giri has 4 points after back-to-back tiebreak victories. In today’s round it took a heroic comeback against Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa to even reach the blitz playoff, as Pragg won games 1 and 2. Giri won convincingly in game 3, and in game 4 had to grind away for a very long time to win what was and should have remained a drawn ending. Praggnanandhaa was probably psychologically gone by this point, and was crushed in the first tiebreak game, with White. Giri drew the second blitz game, as he did yesterday against Le, and sealed the victory.
The games, with my comments to the decisive games, are here. These are the pairings for round 3:
So (0) - Erigaisi (0)
Carlsen (6) - Mamedyarov (3)
Duda (6) - Giri (4)
Praggnanandhaa (0) - Le (4)