GM Magnus Carlsen had a splendid begin on the primary day of the Julius Baer Generation Cup, scoring 10 out of a doable 12 factors with three wins and a draw. All eyes are on spherical six on Monday, when the world champion is paired in opposition to GM Hans Niemann.

The Julius Baer Generation Cup is already the seventh event on this yr’s Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, out of a complete of 9 occasions. The official leaderboard web page gives the look that the standings are based mostly on cash earned to this point, and it is Carlsen who’s atop with $146,500, forward of GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda with $100,500.

Sponsored by the Swiss non-public financial institution Julius Baer, the Generation Cup has an additional twist: a brand new sport between Carlsen and Niemann, schedule in spherical six on Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific / 19:00 CEST. While the Sinquefield Cup storm has calmed down a bit, the chess world continues to be awaiting an extra assertion from Carlsen whereas anticipating this conflict. On the primary day, neither of the 2 gamers gave an interview.

Carlsen solely drew with Giri and defeated GMs Arjun Erigaisi, Adhiban B., and Le Quang Liem. The sport with Adhiban noticed a really uncommon opening; White’s second transfer was by no means performed earlier than by a prime grandmaster. The Indian grandmaster was beneath strain for a lot of the sport however on the finish he was additionally briefly profitable:

Niemann is likely one of the gamers on 9 factors, with a loss and three wins within the bag. One of them was in opposition to GM Christopher Yoo the place after 24 strikes it was onerous to think about one thing else than a draw.

As its title suggests, the Generation Cup has gamers from totally different generations. 54-year-old GM Boris Gelfand did not accomplish that properly, however was nonetheless cheerful afterward, saying: “My foremost wrestle, I feel, was that I performed horribly!”

Another participant from his era did fairly properly. 53-year-old GM Vasyl Ivanchuk is in a shared second place after beginning with a loss to GM Praggnanandhaa R. however then profitable three video games in a row, in opposition to GMs Ivan Saric, Anish Giri, and the aforementioned Duda.

Ivanchuk appears in glorious form; the day earlier than he had crushed GM Ray Robson 3-1 within the Chess.com Global Chess Championship and on September 6 he completed in shared third place within the early Titled Tuesday event.

In an interview with the official Meltwater broadcast, the Ukrainian legend spoke from his house in Lviv and revealed that he’s enjoying much more on-line draughts than chess nowadays. He additionally commented on the conflict scenario:

“Fortunately I’m kind of protected, if it is doable to be protected in Ukraine,” he stated. “It’s not simple to go from Ukraine to a different nation and I’m a person within the class between 18 and 60 so I’m staying at house and I hope [the] conflict will end as quickly doable. People who can assume logically, must do one thing to cease this nightmare as a result of very younger individuals are killed for nothing.”

Julius Baer Generation Cup | Day 1 Standings

All Games Day 1

The 2022 Champions Chess Tour’s seventh occasion, the Julius Baer Generation Cup, takes place September 18-25, 2022 on chess24. The preliminary part is a 16-player speedy (15|10) round-robin. The prime eight gamers advance to the knockout part that consists of two days of four-game speedy matches, which advance to blitz (5|3) and armageddon (White has 5 minutes, Black 4 with no increment) tiebreaks provided that a knockout match is tied after the second day. The prize fund is $150,000.