Aronian and Nakamura win Game 1 of the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 Semifinals

Game 1 of the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 semifinals ended with Aronian beating Dominguez after an “inhuman” game, while Nakamura won Rapport with a steady and tactical play.

Game 1 of the semifinals started with the famous artist Matthias Deutschmannwith initiating the first move in the Nakamura-Rapport game. Nakamura-Rapport game started with the Queen’s Gambit declined, while Aronian-Dominguez with the Queen’s Gambit accepted, gaining Nakamura’s attention!

Aronian-Dominguez

The Aronian-Dominguez game showed from the beginning that it was going to be a fascinating game. “Dominguez has less than an hour on his clock, which makes me question the depth of his preparation. He was the one to pick this very sharp line and yet he is thinking too much” GM Evgenij Miroshnichenko commented.

This sharp position went wrong incredibly fast for Dominguez, with Aronian suddenly completely winning, according to the computer!

Even though the Armenian-American GM seemed to have missed the right moves in order to exploit his advantage and win immediately, the position was still hanging by a thread. Eventually, Dominguez’s position took the downhill once more and Aronian won the first game of the semifinals to enter game 2 of the semifinals with an important point.

Nakamura-Rapport

The Nakamura-Rapport game followed the Kasparov-Smyslov game from the 1988 USSR Chess Championship! The game was a draw, with Kasparov and Karpov ultimately tying for 1st since there was no playoff!

The game between the two semifinalists evolved peacefully with both GMs playing safe and solid, but after various tactical sequences, Nakamura ended up with a passed pawn and a clear advantage.

Nakamura found himself in a rook endgame with two extra passed pawns and finished the game with preciseness to move into a favorable game 2 of the semifinals.

Join our live stream with GM Evgenij Miroshnichenko and WIM Jesse February and watch the games.