The two-day final of the Julius Baer Generation Cup will be played between GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Arjun Erigaisi. After Carlsen knocked out GM Vincent Keymer, Erigaisi reached his first Tour final by beating GM Le Quang Liem in a blitz playoff.
Carlsen-Keymer 3-1
17-year-old Keymer put up a good fight in his match with the world champion, who said he was impressed with his opponent’s play. After two draws, the third game was kind of critical.
“The third game, that was a shame,” Carlsen said with a wry smile. “I had done everything correctly up to a certain point and then I blundered at some point, I made the wrong rook move. I realized my mistake right after, which was a bit disappointing. Anyway, after that it was fairly equal, then I managed to outplay him again and even after that I blundered something simple because I played a little bit too quickly in a good position.”
I play to win, I push, I push, and then if that’s not enough, I try to push some more.
—Magnus Carlsen
Erigaisi-Le 4-2
Erigaisi started with a win with the white pieces in a very sharp Italian game, where accurate calculation made the difference:
Missing a win in the third game, Erigaisi then went down in the fourth:
Erigaisi got himself together, helped by some pep talk from his parents in between the rapid and the blitz segments, and won both blitz games.
“The match was very close,” he said. “I could have finished it off in the third game but I kind of hesitated, I didn’t find the killer 35…Bd2 and after that fourth game I was very nervous and I played bad. After losing the fourth game I wasn’t sure how it would go but I’m glad I managed to win it.”
After losing the FXT Crypto Cup final in Miami to GM Praggnanandhaa R. in the blitz playoff last month, Carlsen will now face another Indian teenager. The two have played each other only three times before: draws in the Goldmoney Asian Rapid tournament (June 2021, online) and the world blitz championship (December 2021) and Carlsen’s win in the preliminaries of this event.
All Games Day 6
The 2022 Champions Chess Tour’s seventh event, the Julius Baer Generation Cup, takes place September 18-25, 2022 on chess24. The preliminary phase was a 16-player rapid (15|10) round-robin. The top eight players have advanced to the knockout phase which consists of two days of four-game rapid matches, which advance to blitz (5|3) and armageddon (White has five minutes, Black four with no increment) tiebreaks only if a knockout match is tied after the second day. The prize fund is $150,000.
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