If you remember my recap of Leon a few days ago, you’ll recall that in both semi-final matches and again in the final the player who won first wound up losing the match. It didn’t quite work out that way in the quarterfinals of the Road to Miami, but it was close: three of the four players to strike first in these best-of-four rapid matches went on to lose.
Let’s start with the Sam Sevian-Wei Yi match. Sevian was in great form in the prelims, taking clear first and losing only one game, while Wei Yi had to scrap his way to take the last qualifying place. It’s no great surprise that Sevian nearly won the first game with Black - and should have - and then won game two. Game three was drawn, so Sevian needed only a draw with White to advance. Piece of cake; in fact, he was better-to-winning for a long time. Unfortunately, he blundered with 43.d6??, and an alert Wei Yi spotted the winning 43…c3 in reply. Sevian fought on for a long time, but never had a chance to save the game, and they were off to playoff games. The first, with Sevian having White, was drawn, and in the second Sevian had several tactical lapses, eventually losing the game and the match.
Ok, that was one disappointing result for team USA, but we have two more players in the field, Jeffery Xiong and Levon Aronian. Xiong, taking on Richard Rapport, had a similar start to Sevian’s, except with the colors reversed. With White in game 1 he was close to beating Rapport, and in game 2 he succeeded in winning with Black. Unfortunately, like Sevian, his second white game was also the occasion for disaster, as Rapport equalized the scores. Xiong could have won game 4 but didn’t, and Rapport cruised in the playoff, winning both games.
Unlike his compatriots, Aronian didn’t even start with a lead, but lost game 1 of his match to Arjun Erigaisi. With White in game 2 he only managed a draw, but - you guessed it! - Erigaisi lost his second White game, following in Sevian’s and Xiong’s footsteps. Unlike the last two matches, this one didn’t make it to a tiebreak, as Erigaisi lost again.
Finally, the match between Anish Giri and Jan-Krzysztof Duda only had one decisive game, so there was no comeback this time. Or at least not at the level of the match as a whole. In the game that Duda won, there was a comeback: Giri was winning with room to spare, but first he drifted and then blundered with 38.Qa5?? and had to resign a few moves later.
So that gives us Wei-Yi vs. Rapport in one semi-final and Duda-Aronian in the other, and that action is taking place right now. Meanwhile, here’s a selection of games from the quarterfinals, with varying amounts of analysis.