Nepomniachtchi was crowned the king of the prelim stage of the Champions Chess Tour 2022
The Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2022 reached the quarterfinals with the Top8 players of the tour. Magnus Carlsen managed to save a spot despite his poor performance, while Nepomniachtchi was crowned the king of the prelim stage.
Russia’s No.1 Ian Nepomniachtchi has had an excellent tour so far, scoring 29 points and moving to the quarterfinals with ease against the German GM Vincent Keymer. Keymer made quite an impression with his performance at the Tour, after his participation at the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 with his grateful and humble mindset.
The World Champion, who is still suffering the side effects of COVID-19, had a 2.5/3 score on Day 4 and secured his place in the quarterfinals with 25 points.
A massive surprise was the Canadian streamer Eric Hansen, who not only finished 5th with 23 points and qualified for the knockouts but has beaten Carlsen and Nepo in the Tour! “It’s been a bit of a dream,” Hansen said afterward. “I’m still taking it all in.”
Meanwhile, the chess queen, Alexandra Kosteniuk, achieved her first and only win in the Tour against Hansen, and was blatantly relieved and happy!
Big names were left out of the quarterfinals, like the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix finalist Levon Aronian, the Magnus Carlsen Invitational champion Anish Giri, and the 16-year-old Indian chess prodigy Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, with the last one still trending on Indian Twitter!
Pragg hit the headlines overnight but the proud tweets for beating the World Champion kept coming. The Prime minister of India, the leader of the second-most populous country in the world, the biggest news website in the world, and an official Government of India channel congratulated young Pragg on Twitter, and not only!
Today the knockouts include Nepomniachtchi-Keymer, Hansen-Esipenko, Artemiev-Ding, and Le-Carlsen. Watch it at 6PM CET, and you can watch it on the World Chess broadcasting page.
