The first half of the tournament (7 out of 14 rounds) have been played in March last year. It was cut off due to the pandemic. The second half resumes this month, continuing with where the standings were before it was cut off:
Read more here.
The first leg of the Grand Chess Tour 2018, the Your Next Move 2018, came to a conclusion. After 5 days of play, 9 rounds of rapid and 18 rounds of blitz games, Wesley So emerged victorious being just half a point ahead of the contenders: Sergey Karjakin and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
The last round indeed was full of drama. Going into the final round, So was just half a point ahead of Karjakin and MVL — he needed a win to secure the title, while a draw could mean tie-break games. Watching the live coverage, you can see the disappointment in So’s face as he resigned his last blitz game against Hikaru Nakamura. Yet, to his surprise, both Karjakin and MVL lost their respective games as well. Thus, Wesley So was crowned the champion.
On the third day of Your Next Move 2018, Wesley So further extends his lead as the rapid rounds wrap up when he defeated Hikaru Nakamura in the 7th round.
Thus, after the 9 rapid rounds, below is the rankings:
[csvtable file=”http://chesshive.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ynm-18-ranking-rapid.csv”]
And here’s how it looks using the GTC scoring system:
Fast chess such as Rapid and Blitz games truly brings excitement into the world of chess. That’s the meat of the first leg of Grand Chess Tour 2018, the Your Next Move 2018 happening in Leuven, Belgium, as it brings top chess players around the globe to play rapid and blitz chess.
On Day 2 of the Rapid games, Wesley So pulled off yet another outstanding chess as he won 2, against Anish Giri and Alexander Grischuk, and drew against Levon Aronian in Round 6.
Thus, So now leads by 1 full game against the closest runner up.
[csvtable file=”http://chesshive.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ynm18-day2.csv”]
Here are the scores according to the Your Next Move scoring system:
Replay all Day 2 Rapid games below:[replay]
Your Next Move 2018, the first leg of Grand Chess Tour 2018, kicks off in Leuven in Belgium.
Day 1 concluded with 3 rapid rounds. Wesley So won 2, against Fabiano Caruana and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and drew 1 against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, to lead the pack with 2.5 points.
[csvtable file=”http://chesshive.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ynm18-day1.csv”]
Replay the games below:[replay]
Stay tuned for more rapid and blitz chess action of Your Next Move 2018.
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.
Magnus Carlsen may have been down by 3 points when the rapid rounds of the tournament concluded against the then leader Wesley So, but after a spectacular performance of 14.5/18 in the blitz rounds, Carlsen came out the runaway winner of the second leg of the Grand Chess Tour 2017, the Your Next Move 2017, which happened in Leuven, Belgium.
This is a back-to-back tournament wins for Carlsen as he also won the the tour’s Paris leg last month. Remember that the Grand Chess Tour 2017 is composed of 5 tournaments as follows:
