World number one Magnus Carlsen continued his monstrous streak in faster-paced chess events, completing a flawless upper bracket run in impressive fashion against some of the best players of the world to win the Aimchess Rapid 2023 tournament.
The Champions Chess Tour, a longstanding series of online tournaments beginning as the sole high-level competitive outlet during the pandemic, has changed a lot over the years. However, one factor has been common in all versions of the Tour: Magnus Carlsen’s dominance. Indeed, the competition started out as the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour, and now three years later, it is Chess.com’s flagship online event—and the Norwegian is showing no signs of slowing down no matter the format, the organizers, or the calendar year.
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Involving the usual rapid time control format of ten minutes per game with two seconds added per move and four-game matches to decide progression in the knockout bracket, the top division of the event—christened the Aimchess Rapid for promotional reasons—featured seven players from the world’s top 100. Joining them to complete the eight was Eduardo Iturrizaga, a 2617-rated grandmaster who’s had an impressive run through the lower bracket but ultimately succumbed to the big guns, finishing the event in fourth place.
Carlsen’s run began with a convincing 2.5-0.5 victory over Dutch championship runner-up and world no. 39 Jorden Van Foreest, followed by an impressive derby triumph over Fabiano Caruana—Carlsen’s challenger in the 2018 Classical World Chess Championship. Then followed a grudge match against 2004-born Nodirbek Abdusattorov, one of the most impressive youngsters in the game and who snatched away the world rapid championship title from Carlsen in 2021. The Norwegian would reclaim the title in 2022—something he didn’t forget to remind the commentators about following his win here.
With the flawless upper bracket run, Carlsen had two opportunities to beat Wesley So to secure the tournament victory. The match couldn’t have started better for the world number one, who unleashed some nasty preparation in the Catalan opening with white and went on to secure a large time lead and a strong position. The opening would ultimately prove decisive even after So managed to fight his way back to a draw-ish affair as the game ended in devastating fashion.
Winning again with black, Carlsen was on the verge of victory, and not many expected So to mount any serious resistance after two tough defeats. However, he stunned the world number one with an aggressive attack, which bore fruit in time trouble.
Perhaps it was to be expected that the Norwegian would slow down affairs for the decisive game, going for long-term strategic advantages instead of a more fireworks-filled approach. He coldly traded his way into a dominant endgame and went on to checkmate So, winning $30,000 USD alongside the title.
This was Carlsen’s second win in the tour’s top division after he opened the tour with a win in February’s Airthings Masters, and it sees him lead for the overall standings with Fabiano Caruana also leapfrogging previous leader Hikaru Nakamura, who did not participate in this event but has previously won the Chessable Masters competition.
Following his victory here, commentator Simon Williams asked Carlsen whether he’d consider fighting again for the classical world title he abdicated last year. “With the current length of the games, no, I don’t think so,” he answered in a straightforward fashion.
The Norwegian held the classical world championship title between 2013 and 2023, winning five matches along the way. He is still the highest-rated player in the format and the only one above 2800 ELO, albeit far from the historic 2900 target he set for himself a while ago.
His last classical tournament, Norway Chess, was one of his worst events in the decade, failing to win a single game in the time format, with the caveat that he won seven out of the eight tiebreakers in faster time controls. This was shortly after his third-place finish at the prestigious Tata Steel Chess Tournament at the beginning of the year, where he lost back-to-back games for the first time since 2015.
However, he has crushed the competition in various blitz and rapid events, including a super-tournament in Croatia and a variety of Titled Tuesday online events, making it quite clear where his interests lie.
Carlsen and So will be among the participants in the next major chess tournament, the FIDE World Chess Cup, set to begin July 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
