It’s GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Ian Nepomniachtchi who will renew their rivalry when they meet in the final match played over two days of competition. Both of these chess giants won their respective semifinal matches by a score of 2.5-0.5.

Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi didn’t need the allocated four games to win their matches against GM Vladislav Artemiev and GM Andrey Esipenko.

Just like in his yesterday’s match, the world champion established a lead by winning game one—which, incidentally, takes my “Game of the Day” honors.

DRAWS KICK OFF

The 2022 Champions Chess Tour’s Airthings Masters runs February 19-27 on chess24. The preliminary phase is a 16-player rapid (15+10) round-robin. The top eight players advance to a knockout that consists of one four-game rapid match during the quarterfinals and semifinals and two four-game rapid matches during the final.  Play advance to blitz (5+3) and Armageddon (White has five minutes, Black has four with no increment) tiebreaks only if a knockout match ends in a tie. The total prize fund of the event is $150,000, with $750 for each win and $250 for each draw in the preliminaries.