GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (@Lyonbeast) defeated GM Levon Aronian (@LevonAronian) 14.5-12.5 in Wednesday’s quarterfinal of the Speed Chess Championship. The next match is Magnus Carlsen vs. Vladislav Artemiev on December 3 at 5 a.m. Pacific / 14:00 CET.
Aronian and Vachier-Lagrave had played many times before but never in a Speed Chess Championship. In faster time controls, the Frenchman had a 20-9 plus score with 21 draws in over-the-board chess. He was the slight favorite and lived up to the expectations, but the match was really close.
The match started with a draw, but not without one big moment that must have woken up both players if they weren’t fully awake just yet. Somewhere in the endgame, Vachier-Lagrave dropped his rook on a forbidden square but both players noticed it too late.
Aronian, after the match: “The first game was of course a highlight. Maxime played a move that I would play, 30.Rc7, and then I didn’t take it through!”
It was the French GM who took the early lead in game two after Aronian had surprisingly started the game with 1.b3. “It was not a good idea but I thought it was good to mix it up in blitz,” Aronian would later say.
While he was piling up his pieces towards the black king, Maxime defended everything and let his c-pawn become the hero of the game.
After three draws, Aronian leveled the score with a fine, positional game against Vachier-Lagrave’s Sicilian.
The Frenchman did win the five-minute segment as he won the last game in that time control as Black.
Vachier-Lagrave increased his lead to three points early in the three-minute portion. His 29.Nxe5+ in the third game (game 11 of the match) was impressive.
However, before the bullet, the score was equal again as Aronian had a great comeback. He won his last three white games at the 3+1 time control.
Vachier-Lagrave took a two-point lead straight away early in the bullet session and Aronian never managed to tie anymore.
In the penultimate game, Aronian missed a huge chance to decrease the margin to just one point, thereby keeping hopes for a playoff. Instead, he lost the game and the match as the match clock allowed for just one more game.
Aronian said afterward: “Generally I thought that I was playing slowly out of the gates and that proved to be a decisive factor in the bullet. But I thought it was a close match, it was fun.”
“I thought I should be the favorite in bullet, clearly, but at the same time, I saw that Levon played extremely well in the bullet portion against Ian [Nepomniachtchi], said Vachier-Lagrave.
The 2020 Speed Chess Championship Main Event is a knockout tournament among 16 of the best grandmasters in the world who will play for a $100,000 prize fund, double the amount of last year. The tournament runs from November 1 to December 13, 2020 on Chess.com. Each individual match will feature 90 minutes of 5+1 blitz, 60 minutes of 3+1 blitz, and 30 minutes of 1+1 bullet chess.
Text: Peter Doggers (chess.com)
