A close-fought battle between two of the strongest speed chess players in the world ended with the victory of the pre-match favorite Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (MVL), who managed to parlay a strong early performance in the 5+1 segment and good time management into a successful hold against So’s late comeback attempt.
Matches in the Speed Chess Championship are made up of 90 minutes of 5+1 chess, 60 minutes of 3+1, and 30 minutes of 1+1 bullet games. Each win, regardless of the time control, merited one point for the winner.
Wesley So’s match play was complicated by Mother Nature as his Minnesotan home was enveloped in a snowstorm, forcing him to relocate to a local library to play out the match.
It’s a testament to his skills that the match remained as close as it was despite these circumstances: in the past years, only Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura got the better of him, and as the recent winner of Chess.com’s Global Championship, he was in good form heading into this match.
However, MVL’s oft-underrated speed chess prowess prevailed and he ended the series with a score of 16.5-12.5. A crazy endgame in a time scramble led to a position with four queens on the board, which was one of the most exciting games of the tense match.
This result means MVL will go up against Magnus Carlsen in the semi-finals, shortly after the world champion’s historic undefeated victory against Fabiano Caruana.
On the other side of the bracket, the next series in the tournament tomorrow will pit streamer extraordinaire and four-time SCC champion Hikaru Nakamura against Indian grandmaster Nihal Sarin for a spot in the finals.
