Chess

Carlsen and So, the two big rivals from the 2021 Tour, went head-to-head on Day 1 of the 2022 Tour Finals in a clash seen by the experts as a potential tournament decider. Playing in his first Tour event of the year, So battled hard but it was the Norwegian world champion who came out on top, despite a series of blunders.

The seventh round on Tuesday produced some exciting matches and unexpected results. On the top board, leader Harsha Bharathakoti signed the peace treaty with second seed SL Narayanan while top-seeded Grandmaster R. Praggnanandhaa won a marathon 137-move game against compatriot Karthikeyan Murali to move into joint lead with three others on five-and-a-half points.

Playing the white side of Catalan opening, Harsha exchanged the pieces with his top seed at regular intervals to sign the peace treaty after 33 moves. Eleven players, including Prgganandhaa, trail the leader by half a point. In the other important sixth-round matches, Grandmaster Leon Luke Mendonca drew with Sethuraman SP, while Karthikeyan Murali split the point with compatriot Grandmaster B. Adhiban. Second seed Narayanan SL moved closer with a win over Sandipan Chanda, while Aravindh Chithambaram got the better of Ayush Sharma.

The list for the competition, which begins on November 20, was completed after South Africa confirmed over the weekend that they would participate, the Israel Chess Federation (ICF) said in a statement on Sunday. The other participating countries are China, the United States, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, India, Spain, France, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Poland, and the host Israel, reports Xinhua.

Poland's reigning World Cup winner came into Friday's second day of the final needing just a draw to secure the tournament after a 3-1 first-match win. But Mamedyarov roared back to take the first two games of the second rubber. When Duda made the shock decision to take a quick draw in the third, perhaps to regroup, Mamedyarov was level and the match headed to tiebreaks.

Though Carlsen has already won the Tour title with an event to spare, this was not a great event for the World No.1 from Norway as he had lost to Arjun Erigiasi and D Gukesh in the preliminary rounds. The Duda and pair Mamedyarov, two of the most chaotic and attacking players in world chess, will go head-to-head over two days after a semifinal full of excitement in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour.

Norway's world No. 1, going for a hat-trick of tournament wins in the Tour's penultimate event, took a USD50,000 prize on top of his overall winnings so far of USD192,500 and the title of 2022 Tour champion. Going into Tuesday's quarterfinals, Polish ace Jan-Krzysztof Duda was the only player who could catch him, yet needed Indian teen Arjun Erigaisi to knock out Carlsen and then to win November's final Major of the season.

Duda, the World Cup winner, sealed his spot and USD7,000 in game winnings with an impressive 28/45 points. The 24-year-old also goes into the next phase having moved up to second in the overall Meltwater Champions Chess Tour rankings. He is now the only player left who can catch world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway.

The 16-year-old's win was Carlsen's second loss in two days against one of India's new crop of talented teenagers in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Carlsen went down on Saturday to 19-year-old Arjun Erigaisi. "What a monumental day in history," International Master Jovanka Houska said. "It was just an incredible, incredible performance by Gukesh."

It was sweet revenge for Erigaisi who had lost to Carlsen in the Julius Baer Generation Cup final, and earned his first victory against the world No. 1 on Saturday. The shock defeat happened in Round 7 with Erigaisi breaking through with the brilliant 27.Qf7+ counter-attack, bravely ignoring Carlsen's apparent queen and rook threat down the b-file. The young Indian star went on to close out the win.