The last quarterfinal match of this year’s Speed Chess Championship Main Event was between GMs Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana. The former, who just became the 2021 U.S. Champion (you can read more about that here) went on to win the match 17.5-9.5 and qualified to the semifinals, where he will be facing GM Nihal Sarin.

The live broadcast of the match.

As usual, the match started with 90 minutes of 5+1 blitz. It was really interesting to see how this exact match would go because just less than two months ago these two players were facing each other in the tie-breaks of the 2021 U.S. Championships, where So won with the black pieces to get the title.

This time, the U.S. Champion had the white pieces in the first game. He opened with 1.e4 and meet Caruana’s Sicilian with the Moscow variation, which is not surprising—he recently wrote a course about it and used it to win a game versus Swiercz in the above-mentioned U.S. Championship.

White had a rather pleasant position, but the 2018 World Championship Challenger equalized and was doing perfectly fine only to… flag a few moves later due to internet connectivity issues. A very disappointing beginning of the match for Caruana! However, the plot immediately changed, as So graciously agreed to count the game as a draw.

The second game was drawn in a rather uneventful way, and in the third one, the opponents repeated their theoretical duel from round one. This time, Black improved on his previous play and was doing perfectly fine, then missed the chance to win in one move and somehow quickly had his position fall apart. This enabled So to get the lead: 2-1

The next four games were drawn. They were balanced, for the most part, but Caruana escaped a lost position in the seventh game. In game eight, which ended the series of draws, Caruana obtained a large advantage, but then made a significant mistake and got mated almost instantly. After drawing in game nine, the players finished the first leg of the match with So leading 5.5-3.5.

Trying to change the nature of the battle, Caruana chose the risky Veresov in the first game in the 3+1 segment of the match. However, the gamble did not quite work out: So reacted very precisely and exploited the weak white king to win the game and increase the lead to three points: 6.5-3.5.

Fortunately for the fans of the current U.S. Champion, he went on to win the next three games in a row, getting a four-point lead with the score at 10-6.

In the last game of the three-minute portion of the match, Caruana used a very powerful idea against the So’s Berlin, got a decisive advantage by move fifteen, and scored a very convincing win. With a score of 10.5-7.5 in So’s favor, the players moved on to the last part of the match: the one-minute bullet segment.

Bullet is always not only entertaining but also a bit of a second chance for the player behind on the scoreboard: in the bullet portion of a match, a three-point advantage can melt in just five minutes, like ice cream during a sunny summer day.

Sadly, it was not the case this time, as So proved a lot faster and a lot more precise. He won the first two of the bullet section, inspiring this vacuum sound from commentator GM Daniel Naroditsky:

After a couple of draws, So then won four more in a row—at one point, his lead grew to ten(!) points.

Caruana managed to somewhat improve the final standings by winning the last bullet game, but the final score of 17.5-9.5 was not a great outcome. So won a brilliant match advances to the semifinals, where he will be facing Sarin who had scored an identically impressive win against GM Richard Rapport with the nearly identical score of 18-9. This gives us a truly exciting semifinal to look forward to.

In the post-match interview with the commentators, GMs Naroditsky and Aman Hambleton, So admitted one of the key parts was doing well in the first leg of the match.

He said: “I think the 5+1 portion went well for me because normally that’s my weakest segment. So, when I finished it with +1 or +2, I was pretty happy at that point. The first few games with Black were very crucial, holding the opening. And in the next segment, I lost the two White games, it was a big blow psychologically. Then I was completely losing with Black, I believe it was in game four, but managed to turn it around, that was the turning point.”

… I lost the two White games (3+1) in the next segment, it was a big blow psychologically. Then I was completely losing with Black, I believe it was in game four, but managed to turn it around, that was the turning point.
—Wesley So