Airthings Masters Chess Championship: P Harikrishna bows out after finishing ninth in preliminary phase

Chennai: Indian Grandmaster P Harikrishna bowed out of the Champions Chess Tour Airthings Masters online championship after finishing ninth in the preliminary round. Harikrishna, who registered 10 draws and one loss, ended the tournament with five points. The top eight advanced to the knock-out stage. Though he finished on equal points with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) and Daniil Dubov (Russia), the Prague-based Indian lost out because he did not secure any win and his loss to Dubov knocked him out. The India No. 2 drew against Lev Aronian, Wesley So and Teimour Radjabov in rounds 9, 10 and 11 late on Monday. He had drawn all his four games on the opening day on Saturday, including against world number one Magnus Carlsen, apart from the lone defeat. Carlsen, So, Hikaru Nakamura, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Radjabov, Aronian, Dubov and Vachier-Lagrave qualified for the quarterfinals. Carlsen, who was held to draws in all four games on day 1, bounced back with a victory over Daniil Dubov in round five and finished on top with 6.5 points. The Norwegian had two wins and nine draws. The 12-player tournament has a prize fund of USD 200,000 with the winner pocketing USD 60,000. In the preliminary stage, the players played each other once over 11 rounds in rapid chess. In the knockout stage, each match will be played over two days, with four rapid games each day. If the match score is 1:1 after the second day, the players switch to two 5+3 blitz games, to be followed, if needed, by Armageddon (sudden death tie-break).