Home Chess CCT Finals (Title Match Day 1): Carlsen 1 Set Victory Away From Third Title

CCT Finals (Title Match Day 1): Carlsen 1 Set Victory Away From Third Title

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CCT Finals (Title Match Day 1): Carlsen 1 Set Victory Away From Third Title

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GM Magnus Carlsen is one set away from profitable his third title and $200,000 on the 2023 Champions Chess Tour Finals. On day one of many Title Match, he defeated GM Wesley So with the black items in sport three, squeezing water from stone within the rook endgame.

So should win the primary set on Saturday with a purpose to attain the third. One other set win for Carlsen, who performed with 98.1% accuracy on day one, secures the title.

The Title Match concludes on Saturday, December 16, beginning at 12 p.m. ET / 18:00 CET / 10:30 p.m. IST.

Identical to the Semifinals, the marathon closing match is better of three units, throughout two days. Every set is 4 video games with an armageddon tiebreaker. 

Chess followers throughout the road—joined by FM James Canty III, IM Levy Rozman, GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, GM Eric Hansen, GM Aman Hambleton, GM Aryan Tari, and extra—watched the video games from the Belfast Love Public Home. You’ll be able to try the motion within the video under:

The stakes are big. $200,000 will go to the winner, whereas the runner-up nonetheless walks away with $100,000. There was additionally tuna at stake for the American participant’s two biggest followers, as he shared on X:

Hansen, alternatively, was concerned in pre-match preparations with the previous world champion, i.e. watching the Toronto house workforce lose stay in additional time.

Battling in opposition to Carlsen is usually an uphill battle, however So was the one participant who’d already received a match in opposition to the world number-one earlier on this occasion. However with the latter boasting a greater lifetime rating and a 75% likelihood of profitable, in accordance with our stats workforce, the international chess champion nonetheless confronted one of many biggest challenges of his profession.

Carlsen 2.5-1.5 So: Carlsen Scores With Black In Recreation 3

The primary two video games had been the calm earlier than the storm; neither participant achieved a lot with the white items. The match took a pointy flip in sport three, the one decisive sport, which determined the primary set.

The primary shock got here as early as transfer certainly one of sport one when So, with the white items, performed 1.b3. It is a transfer that Carlsen himself mentioned “is just not a horrible transfer” yesterday.

So managed to win a pawn, however Carlsen held the attract a heavy-piece endgame.

Recreation two additionally resulted in a draw after Carlsen failed to realize any benefit with the white items. Curiously, many of the sport had been performed in a sport earlier than—between So and Carlsen!

Recreation three spilled the primary (and solely) blood, and it was a pointy Sicilian battle. There have been many twists and turns within the opening, the place Carlsen initiated many of the surprises—first taking part in the O’Kelly Sicilian after which transposing into some kind of “Dragondorf” construction after 6…g6.

The Fan Zone was packed. Photograph: Thomas Tischio/Chess.com.

So held his personal by way of all of the middlegame issues, however once they reached the pure rook endgame, which was typically equal, Carlsen labored his magic.

The reigning fast chess champion mentioned: “As soon as he began to play passive, I used to be attempting to see, can I maintain the sport going, can I get any possibilities, and yeah, I am pleased with the way in which that it went.” GM Rafael Leitao shares the way it went down in our Recreation of the Day. (To be added quickly.)

“I underestimated his …g5 enterprise,” mentioned So after the sport, and now he needed to win on demand with Black. He later mentioned: “It is form of inexcusable to lose a white sport in a brief match.”

It is form of inexcusable to lose a white sport in a brief match.

—Wesley So

Set two might be important for So. Photograph: Thomas Tischio/Chess.com. 

Going through a visibly disillusioned So, the previous world champion selected the dependable Alapin Sicilian as his “drawing weapon.”

So had an ever-so-slight benefit within the endgame, reaching the bishop pair, but it surely wasn’t sufficient to win. Carlsen traded all the way down to opposite-colored bishops and, with a 3rd draw, received the primary set.

Howell defined that So was “perhaps taking the safer method when he ought to have risked all of it” and broke down a second the worldwide champion might have pressed more durable:

After the sport, Carlsen shared that he got here in in search of a combat. “The way in which that I beat him is that I simply, , I hustle him. I take advantage of his kind of lack of aggression in opposition to him.”

So, who might be in a must-win state of affairs within the subsequent set, mentioned that he’ll keep away from Twitter/X. Let’s examine if he stays true to his phrase—and if it should assist.

The 2023 Champions Chess Tour Finals (CCT Finals) is the closing occasion of the Champions Chess Tour, Chess.com’s most necessary occasion up to now. The gamers meet in Toronto, Canada, in an exhilarating final conflict for the title. The Finals characteristic a $500,000 prize fund.

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