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Action-Packed in Round 1 of the Candidates Tournament 2018

We saw a lot of blood drawn in the opening round of the Candidates Tournament 2018, the tournament that will determine who will be this year’s challenger to Magnus Carlsen in the World Chess Championship 2018.

Shahkriyar Mamedyarov, Vladimir Kramnik, and Fabiano Caruana led the opening round rampage. The victims: Sergey Karjakin, Alexander Grischuk, and Wesley So, respectively.

Candidates Tournament 2018 Round 1 Results

WhiteResultsBlack
Kramnik, Vladimir1-0Grischuk, Alexander
Caruana, Fabiano1-0So, Wesley
Aronian, Levon½-½Ding, Liren
Karjakin, Sergey0-1Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar

Ding Liren and Levon Aronian off to Finals – FIDE World Cup 2017

We saw four draws in four classical games in the two semi-final matches (replay). Thus both match-ups headed to the playoffs.

In the match-up between Wesley So and Ding Liren, the first pair of rapid games (25mins + 10sec) ended in further draws, but in the second pair of rapid games (10mins + 10sec), Ding Liren drew first blood in the first game and in the second game he was happy enough for the draw. Replay games here.

Wesley So vs. Ding Liren match-up results – FIDE World Cup 2017 Semifinals

FIDE World Cup 2017 Semi Finals

From 128 players, now we’re down to just 4: Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wesley So and Ding Liren.

Big names that were not able to make it to the Final Four include Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Vladimir Kramnik, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Grischuk, Viswanathan Anand, Sergey Karjakin and Anish Giri.

Remember, the winners (2) of the Semi-Final round are secured a spot in next year’s Candidates tournament.

March 2017 FIDE Ratings Update

GM Wesley So is now officially the No. 2 chess player in the world, in the March 2017 FIDE Ratings list, up one notch from last month’s.

Moreover, it should be noted that this is the first time that there are 5 2800+ players in the list, after MVL made a comeback to the 2800-club.

FIDE Top 20 — March 2017

[csvtable file=”http://chesshive.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/fide-top-20-march-2017.csv”]

Check out the complete Top 100 list.

Nakamura wins Gibraltar 2017 title

Hikaru Nakamura and Yu Yangyi won their respective games in the final Round 10 of Tradewise Gibraltar Masters 2017, to get a shot at the title when David Antón Guijarro drew his game against Michael Adams.

At the end of Round 10, Guijarro, Nakamura, and Yu were tied, thus necessitated a playoff:

Tradewise Gibraltar Masters 2017 Final Ranking

[csvtable file=”http://chesshive.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/gibraltar-final.csv”]

See complete list

Replay all games in Tradewise Gibraltar Masters 2017.