The semifinals of the 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour’s Chessable Masters will see the matches GM Magnus Carlsen vs. GM Ding Liren and GM Anish Giri vs. Praggnanandhaa R. played on Tuesday. The winners will qualify for the final that will be played over two days.

Giri-Tari 2.5-0.5

The first player to qualify for the semis was Giri, who needed just three games to knock out GM Aryan Tari. After two losses where he was just outplayed, the Norwegian was a pawn down in game three and decided to throw in the towel himself with a draw offer.

“I’m thrilled and I’m just enjoying myself,” said Giri, who has shown excellent form so far and is now 18 games undefeated in the event.

The first game, with a very modest opening choice by Giri, saw a helpless Tari dropping a pawn and then another one:

Praggnanandhaa-Wei 2.5-1.5

Giri’s opponent in the semis is Praggnanandhaa, who defeated GM Wei Yi in a hard-fought match. The Chinese GM lost the first two games but came back to win the third; then Pragg held the draw and avoided a playoff. 

The second game is a fascinating example of domination based on a long-standing pin over the h4-d8 diagonal and better development.

Carlsen – Anton 2.5-0.5

The other semifinal is one to look forward to as well, as it will be played between the top-two players in the world in classical chess. Carlsen had the smoothest path to the semis because as White he beat GM David Anton twice with a draw as Black in between.

In game three, the world champion once again experimented with an off-beat opening, this time 1.f4. “I think it’s appropriate that I only wheel it out once every few years!” Carlsen said.

He had played this a few times before in his career (mostly in 2017) in faster time controls, but also used it once in classical to beat GM Michael Adams at the 2017 London Chess Classic.

Ding-Mamedyarov 2.5-1.5

This match saw an identical scenario to Pragg-Wei with Ding beating GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in the first two games, losing the third, and then clinching the match with a draw in game four. Game two is especially interesting.

All Games Day 5

Chessable Masters Knockout Results

The 2022 Champions Chess Tour’s fourth event, the Chessable Masters, runs May 19-26, 2022 on chess24. The preliminaries are a 16-player round-robin from which the top eight qualify for the knockout stage. The time control is 15 minutes plus a 10-second increment; the scoring system is three points for a win, one for a draw, and zero for a loss. The prize fund is $150,000.

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