The 2022 Chess.com Pace Chess Championship commenced on Thursday with a cutthroat qualifier the place GM David Paravyan emerged victorious after defeating GM Tuan Minh Le in a blinding armageddon tiebreaker.
Amidst a area of 142 titled gamers, Minh Le impressively gained the Swiss occasion with an imperious 11/14 rating and was solely overcome by an impressed Paravyan, who booked his spot within the Pace Chess Championship spherical of 16.
The second qualifier will happen on Saturday, November 12, beginning at 9 a.m. PT/19:00 CEST.
Swiss
Thursday’s Swiss match was marked by an astonishing run by recently-minted GM Le who flew off to an 8/8 begin and held his result in win the occasion by a full level. Making this all of the extra spectacular, Le’s streak included two wins with the black items towards tremendous GMs Jan Krzysztof-Duda and Daniil Dubov!
Handing the chief his solely lack of the day in spherical 9, GM Alexey Sarana had a tremendous run on Thursday and completed in second place on 10/14. Sarana selected a barely totally different qualification route from his colleagues, drawing solely two video games in fourteen rounds in a flash of preventing chess.
Acquainted faces fleshed out the highest eight qualifying spots, specifically GMs Jose Martinez, Dubov, Rauf Mamedov, Paravyan, and one other deserving new GM on the block, Denis Lazavik.
GM Maksim Chigaev was the eighth participant to scrape via forward of Duda and was the only real participant with a Chess.com blitz score underneath 3000 to qualify for the knockout. The power of this qualifier was on full show as Chigaev’s 2972 score locations him 56th on Chess.com’s blitz leaderboards and plenty of 3000+ gamers missed out on a top-eight end.
| Quantity | Fed | Title | Username | Identify | Ranking | Rating | SB |
| 1 | GM | wonderfultime | Tuan Minh Le | 3036 | 11 | 83.5 | |
| 2 | GM | mishanick | Alexey Sarana | 3015 | 10 | 82.5 | |
| 3 | GM | Jospem | Jose Martinez | 3028 | 10 | 78 | |
| 4 | GM | Duhless | Daniil Dubov | 3019 | 10 | 76.75 | |
| 5 | GM | Baku_Boulevard | Rauf Mamedov | 3099 | 10 | 75.75 | |
| 6 | GM | dropstoneDP | David Paravyan | 3048 | 10 | 74.5 | |
| 7 | GM | DenLaz | Denis Lazavik | 3015 | 10 | 70.5 | |
| 8 | GM | Fandorine | Maksim Chigaev | 2972 | 10 | 68.25 | |
| 9 | GM | Polish_fighter3000 | Jan Krzysztof Duda | 3039 | 9.5 | 75 | |
| 10 | GM | Indianlad | S.L Narayanan | 3017 | 9 | 71.25 | |
| 11 | GM | jefferyx | Jeffery Xiong | 2994 | 9 | 69.25 | |
| 12 | GM | rasmussvane | Rasmus Svane | 3010 | 9 | 67.25 | |
| 13 | GM | Msb2 | Matthias Bluebaum | 2964 | 9 | 63.25 | |
| 14 | GM | vi_pranav | V Pranav | 2981 | 9 | 61.75 | |
| 15 | GM | Salem-AR | Salem AR Saleh | 3049 | 9 | 57.5 | |
| 16 | GM | Zhigalko_Sergei | Sergei Zhigalko | 2881 | 9 | 51.75 | |
| 17 | GM | TigrVShlyape | Gata Kamksy | 2956 | 8.5 | 67.25 | |
| 18 | GM | DanielNarodistky | Daniel Naroditsky | 3081 | 8.5 | 58.5 | |
| 19 | GM | BogdanDeac | Daniel-Bogdan Deac | 3013 | 8.5 | 56.25 | |
| 20 | GM | GMBenjaminBok | Benjamin Bok | 2946 | 8.5 | 56 | |
Knockout
The knockout part of the Pace Chess Championship qualifier was performed at three-time controls and adopted a singular format: two video games of 5+1, 4 video games of three+1, and eight video games of 1+1. The participant who first reached a rating of seven.5 was declared the winner in every match.
Le picked off proper the place he began on Thursday and viciously swept apart every of his opponents en path to a spot within the last. Having secured his GM necessities in American occasions in July and August, Le performed confidently and had no hassle knocking over Chigaev in an 8-4 demolition.
After sweeping apart Dubov with a 7.5-3.5 rating in their very own quarterfinal, Mamedov promised to be a harder opponent for Le however was additionally mowed down by the rampaging Vietnamese GM in an 8-5 victory.
On the opposite facet of the draw, Paravyan and Sarana progressed after defeating Martinez and Lazavik respectively in shut encounters.
4 gamers make it to the semifinals!
Tuan Minh Le ⚔️ @muisback88
Alexey Sarana ⚔️ David Paravyan#speedchess pic.twitter.com/35F5pxyCgV
— ChesscomLive (@ChesscomLive) November 11, 2022
Of their semifinal showdown towards one another, Paravyan pushed out to a 3-0 lead as Sarana struggled, “dwelling off his increment,” within the phrases of commentator Canty. A resurgence within the bullet portion was all the time on the playing cards for Sarana. however the deficit was an excessive amount of and Paravyan prevailed with a 7.5-3.5 rating after a couple of wild moments transpired because the match closed out.
Regardless of the disappointing semifinal rating, Sarana can take solace in a number of the tactical brilliancies he executed all through the occasion, together with a vicious queen sacrifice towards Paravyan.
Sarana tops off an assault on the black facet of the Najdorf with a pleasant queen sacrifice!#speedchess pic.twitter.com/1hH2uU1e7J
— ChesscomLive (@ChesscomLive) November 11, 2022
The ultimate between Le and Paravyan was all the time destined to go all the way down to the wire, nevertheless it could not have gone nearer. After six video games the 2 had been tied 3-3, and Le seemed as if he would strike within the first bullet sport following a horrific queen blunder from Paravyan. Miraculously, Paravyan recovered and swindled the sport, swinging momentum again in his favor.
Nervous mannerisms turned a sizzling subject amongst the viewers and commentators as each Le and Paravyan spent a lot of the match twirling their hair, generally in synchrony. It’s unclear if the so-called “double twirl” has any optimistic impact on chess skill, however primarily based on the truth that two hair twirlers made Friday’s last it may be price a attempt for aspiring GMs.
Nerves apart, the gamers couldn’t be break up after 14 video games and at 7-7 needed to be break up by an armageddon tiebreaker. Any end result appeared doable through the middlegame; nevertheless, Paravyan finally overcame Minh and introduced the qualifier to an emotional finish.
GM Rafael Leitao has unpacked our thrilling sport of the day under.
Armageddon tiebreakers are like soccer matches which can be determined by penalty shootouts. Everybody loves to observe, so long as it is not together with your favourite crew. My expertise with this format would not deliver me good reminiscences; I misplaced all of the armageddons I performed throughout my profession (there have been solely two, however that quantity is sufficient for me).
Paravyan takes $1,000 and a spot in the principle occasion, whereas Le earns $1,000 for his efforts.
The 2022 Pace Chess Championships Essential Occasion will start on the twenty first of November and conclude on the sixteenth of December. High speed-chess gamers will compete at three totally different time controls in a 16-player knockout as they vie for a share of the $100,000 prize fund together with probably the most prestigious title in on-line chess.
The likes of GMs Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Ding Liren, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and plenty of extra will battle it out to find out the 2022 velocity chess champion.
Earlier protection
