Vladislav Artemiev took down Magnus Carlsen as the Chessable Masters kicked off with a series of shocks across all three divisions.
The event, the second leg of Chess.com’s 2 million dollar Champions Chess Tour, began on Monday with a star-studded field in Division I headed by Carlsen and American rival Hikaru Nakamura.
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Right from the start, it was clear the two big beasts of online chess were in for a rough ride. Carlsen, playing in his last event as world champion, lost his first game to Artemiev after walking into a pin. It was an ultra-rare endgame blunder from the Norwegian that seemed to set the tone going forward.
Carlsen’s mistake was the first of many in a topsy-turvy match that saw him go into the final game 2-1 down and needing a win to take it to an Armageddon tiebreaker.
“Magnus Carlsen losing two games with white in a day? When was the last time that happened?," GM David Howell said.
Artemiev’s nerve failed to hold, however, and he made two blunders to hand Carlsen a last-gasp way back into the match. Carlsen is never easily beaten.
Yet then the Armageddon disaster truly struck for Carlsen. It was a game-losing blunder and Artemiev hit back with 39.Rxg6+! to finally drop Carlsen down to the Losers bracket.
In the first event of the 2023 Tour season, the Airthings Masters, Carlsen took the title without losing a match. Not this time.
“It was pretty bad. He generally outplayed me, the last game was terrible," Carlsen said after the match:
Asked how he will pick himself up for next challenges, the Norwegian said: “This was an awful day of chess. I did everything to lose – and then some. It takes a strong opponent to exploit that, but that was really poor so we’ll see. I will do my best tomorrow, but this is unacceptable."
Meanwhile, Carlsen’s big rival Nakamura also found himself in trouble early on. Like Carlsen, the American needed a comeback to take it to Armageddon and was being dominated before Vladimir Fedoseev let the win slip in heartbreaking fashion.
Nakamura now heads the Winners bracket while Carlsen needs to beat Liem or be dumped out of the tournament.
Wesley So had been the first to confirm his place in the semi-final with a win over fellow American Levon Aronian. So recovered from a first-game loss to post two wins and take down his rival without needing the tiebreaker. Aronian now drops to the Losers bracket.
Fabiano Caruana followed with another tense Armageddon win over Vietnam’s Liem Le.
“What a day it’s been, just so many twists and turns. Normally when tournaments start everyone’s a bit nervous, a bit cagey, we see a few quick draws here and there. But this one’s just been fired all day," GM Howell told Chess.com.
Division II saw two notable results in the Round of 16 stage with Indian teen Praggnanandhaa beating Vietnam’s Tuan Minh Le 3-0 and chess legend Vladimir Kramnik edging past China’s Yangyi Yu 2.5-1.5. Arjun Erigaisi also beat his countryman Raunak Sadhwani 2.5-1.5.
In Division III, David Anton of Spain pulled off a shock with a 2-1 win over India’s teen star Gukesh D. in the Round of 32 before eventually losing 1.5-0.5 to Alexey Sarana.
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