FIDE Grand Prix Tournament 1, Knockout Stage

 The two semi-finals went in similar ways. Aronian and Nakamura, having been given white in the first game, both took full advantage of it to win, and then followed this up with a draw with black to reach the final.

This led to an Aronian-Nakamura final. Both normal time games were exciting affairs ending in draws by repetition, which led to rapidplay playoffs. The prevailing opinion was that Nakamura, as a renowned rapidplay specialist, would have the advantage there, and so it proved, with his winning the play-off 2-0.

This makes for an excellent start for Nakamura in his quest to qualify for only his second candidates. With the first of three tournaments down, the Grand Prix scores are as follows (players not expected to play another game are in italics):

Nakamura 13

Aronian 10

Rapport and Dominguez 7

So, Wojtaszek and Esipenko 4

Vidit and Dubov 3

Grischuk, Harikrishna and Fedoseev 2

Oparin, Bacrot, Keymer and Shirov 0

World Championship 2022 Index

 


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