Chessable Masters Day 1: So Leads; Tough Starts For Mishra

GM Wesley So leads the Chessable Masters’ preliminaries after the first day of play. GMs Vladislav Artemiev, Alireza Firouzja, and GM Hikaru Nakamura are trailing by half a point. The eighth leg of the Champions Chess Tour runs until August 8.

How to watch?
The games of the Chessable Masters preliminaries can be found here as part of our live events platform. Daily commentary is provided on GM Hikaru Nakamura’s Twitch channel starting at 8:00 a.m. Pacific / 17:00 Central Europe.

While the FIDE World Cup is still underway, the next leg in the Champions Chess Tour started on Saturday as well. The format is still the same: 16 players start with a single round-robin tournament of 15 rounds, from where the top eight players advance to a knockout stage.

After GM Hou Yifan made her debut as the first female player in the Tour in the previous tournament, it is nice to see two female players in this field: Women’s World Champion GM Ju Wenjun and GM Humpy Koneru.

It was a good first day for the American players Nakamura and So, who came out on top of the leaderboard together with Artemiev. It was So who did the best, with an undefeated 4/5 score. The field also includes GM Abhimanyu Mishra, the new youngest GM in history, who started with 0.5/5.

Chessable Masters | Round 5 Standings

#	Fed	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	Pts
1		So	2772	2899				½						1		½	1			1	4
2		Artemiev	2704	2832					½		½	½	1						1		3.5
3		Nakamura	2736	2787						½	½				1				½	1	3.5
4		Firouzja	2759	2819	½									½		1	½	1			3.5
5		Mamedyarov	2782	2726		½				1					½		½	½			3
6		Anton	2673	2733			½		0		½								1	1	3
7		Le	2709	2751		½	½			½					½			1			3
8		Van Foreest	2688	2728		½								1		0	½	1			3
9		Adhiban	2660	2718		0									½	1	1	½			3
10		Aronian	2782	2673	0			½				0				1				1	2.5
11		Harikrishna	2730	2695			0		½		½		½						1		2.5
12		Tari	2639	2586	½			0				1	0	0							1.5
13		Iturrizaga	2607	2586	0			½	½			½	0								1.5
14		Ju	2560	2479				0	½		0	0	½								1
15		Koneru	2586	2429		0	½			0					0					½	1
16		Mishra	2504	2329	0		0			0				0					½		0.5

The game that stood out in the first round was GM Jorden van Foreest’s win over GM Levon Aronian. For starters, the Dutchman played 7.Nc3 in the Giuoco Piano which led to the good old Møller Attack, named after the Danish player Jørgen Møller who published an analysis of this variation in Tidsskrift for Skak in 1898.

After he had gradually been outplayed, Van Foreest won the game after all due to a blunder by Aronian:

GM Magnus Carlsen couldn’t play because he is busy trying to win a more important tournament. His compatriot GM Aryan Tari is defending the Norwegian flag for this one and won a good game vs. Van Foreest in round two:

Aryan Tari chess — Aryan Tari. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Mishra’s baptism of fire was a tough one, though he came quite close to making draws against both Americans Nakamura and So. For example, he blundered his rook in the theoretically drawn rook endgame RB-R vs. Naka:

Mishra, who is from Englishtown, New Jersey, said afterward: “It’s an honor to play in this tournament; it is a very good learning opportunity for me.”