Magnus Carlsen Invitational's Prelim Phase Completed
Ian Nepomniachtchi qualified for the knock-out.
The final rounds of the qualification event at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, the 4th event on the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, were played on Chess24.com on March 15.
Magnus Carlsen took first place, having scored 10.5 points out of 15. Anish Giri is half a point behind. Wesley So got 9.5 points. Hikaru Nakamura is fourth with 9 points. Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alireza Firouzja, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave shared 5-7 places with 8.5 points. Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin scored 8 points each, but the Armenian grandmaster edged out the Russian due to the superior tiebreak. Daniil Dubov also bowed out, having taken tenth place with 7.5 points.
The two-day quarterfinals start on March 16 with Carlsen - Aronian, Nepomniachtchi - Nakamura, So - Firouzja, and Vachier-Lagrave - Giri.
The knockout match-ups consist of 4-game matches on the first two days. If the match score is 1:1, two 5+3 games are then played followed, if needed, by Armageddon, where White has 5 minutes to Black's 4 but a draw counts as a win for Black.
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