Firouzja Ends Carlsen's Streak, Still Trails By 1 With Lazavik, Nepomniachtchi

GM Magnus Carlsen leads the 2024 Champions Chess Tour Finals Round-Robin with 5/6, despite dropping one loss to Alireza Firouzja on Wednesday. Three players follow just one point behind: GMs Firouzja, Denis Lazavik, and Ian Nepomniachtchi. 

Round seven and the Survival Stage take place on Thursday, December 19, starting at 12:00 ET / 18:00 CET / 10:30 p.m. IST.

Standings After Round 6

• Round 4: Carlsen Takes Sole 4/4 Lead, Aronian Scores 1st Win
• Round 5: Firouzja Ends Carlsen's Winning Streak
• Round 6: Firouzja, Lazavik, Nepomniachtchi Stay Close Behind Leader
• Round 7 Pairings

As the holiday season rolls around, chess players are nevertheless busy doing what they do best. But Chess.com hosted a "white elephant" exchange with the grandmasters who could choose to pick a gift or steal a gift from someone else. These included pillows with the faces of GMs Hans Niemann and Vladimir Kramnik, boards, cookies, a one-time pass to tweet from the Chess.com Twitter/X account, and more. You can check out the full video of this festive event on our Chess.com YouTube page soon.

While all players will participate in the final round-robin matches on Thursday, GM Wesley So will be eliminated as he only has one match point after two days. Whoever finishes seventh also won't advance to the next stage.

Round 4: Carlsen Takes Sole 4/4 Lead, Aronian Scores 1st Win

Round four featured three armageddons after GMs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Vincent Keymer, and Levon Aronian came back from first-game losses. While Carlsen ultimately held a draw and won his match, both Keymer and Aronian managed to turn their matches around in the tiebreaker. 

The only match that ended in the two regular games was Firouzja vs. Nepomniachtchi. After a draw in the first game, Firouzja wound up in huge trouble on the black side of a Caro-Kann. Nepomniachtchi could have traded into a pawn-up endgame, but instead chose to keep pieces on and play against the king. After 21...e5!, however, it was his own king that landed in the line of fire.

Carlsen won a crushing first game, but the resilient Vachier-Lagrave bounced back and won to force tiebreaks. Carlsen ended up down a pawn in the final game, but miraculously constructed a fortress that could not be broken. In the following position, there's no way for White to safely push his pawn to the c6-square, a light square.

"He outplayed me twice again, so it certainly wasn't easy," said a visibly disappointed Carlsen, even though he now led the tournament with a perfect 4/4 score. He continued, "Today I was just pissed that I was outplayed from a position that I should never be, once, and the third game was just bad."

Tournament co-leader Lazavik went down against a previously struggling Aronian, who managed to win his first match of the event. After losing game one and striking back in game two, Aronian claimed the match after a one-move blunder from the 18-year-old GM in the rook endgame, when both players were on about five seconds. 

In fairness, the position was equal and Aronian would have won the match anyway if they drew.

Finally, Keymer lost game one but also completed the comeback by winning game two and drawing armageddon. In that second game, So had a few clever ways of finding perpetual checks, but instead Keymer broke through by winning a piece thanks to the weak back rank.

Round 5: Firouzja Ends Carlsen's Winning Streak

Firouzja finally ended Carlsen's perfect streak, while Aronian scored his second consecutive match victory and fourth consecutive win. Vachier-Lagrave won smoothly, and Nepomniachtchi won in armageddon.

The most crushing victory of the round was a resurgent Aronian's 2-0 sweep against So. The second game lasted just 20 moves. 

"Even if I can't win, I can always keep some self-respect," said Aronian in an interview with FM Mike Klein. Also, asked about what music he's listening to, Aronian said that he switched from Chameleon (classical music) to simply pink noise, no music.

Vachier-Lagrave scored his second match win against Keymer by winning a pawn-up rook endgame and then holding a draw in the second game. 

That leaves us with the two armageddons. First, all three games between Carlsen and Firouzja ended in draws, despite being hard-fought. Since Firouzja had the black pieces in the armageddon, he was the first player to defeat Carlsen in a match. 

Nepomniachtchi won game one, dropped game two, but won the armageddon game to take the match against Lazavik. He blitzed out the winning move 41.Rxg7! instantly. 

By this point, Carlsen still led with four points, closely followed by Firouzja, Lazavik, and Nepomniachtchi a point behind.

Round 6: Firouzja, Lazavik, Nepomniachtchi Stay Close To Leader

Firouzja, Lazavik, and Nepomniachtchi all won their matches to stay close to the leader. Carlsen, of course, kept doing what he does best: winning.

In the spiciest game of the round, Firouzja defeated Vachier-Lagrave in the all-French matchup. It was the GM with three names who pressed the chaos button on move three, in fact, but the younger player navigated the fireworks to win in 22 moves. GM Rafael Leitao annotates the Game of the Day below. 

Meanwhile, Carlsen won an excellent rook endgame against Aronian, finding a path to a rook and four pawns vs. rook and three pawns that he could win. He drew game two to earn a fifth match point.

Magnus puts up a masterclass in the rook endgame vs. Levon to win game one!https://t.co/UBRfdsyyOx#CCTFinals pic.twitter.com/5qFy3uiSX8

— chess24 (@chess24com) December 18, 2024

Nepomniachtchi defeated Keymer in game one, but the German number-one recuperated and won on demand. In the end, however, Keymer dropped a bishop in the final game, where he had to win on demand.

The day ended in disaster for So, who lost all three matches to end up at the bottom of the scoreboard. In his match against Lazavik, he lost game one and then fell to the well-known Rubinstein trap in game two. 

After 12...Nh5?? 13.Nxd5!, the knight cannot be captured because 14.Bc7 would trap the queen. If 13...Nxg3 14.Nxe7+ Qxe7 15.hxg3, White is just a pawn up, and that's what happened in the game.

Mind you, he's in good company. Rubinstein (after whom it is named) fell into it not once, but twice...

— Douglas Griffin (@dgriffinchess) December 18, 2024

Round 7 Pairings

The final matches of the Round-Robin take place on Thursday, and the bottom two players on the scoreboard will be eliminated. The top two get to skip the Survival Stage. Vachier-Lagrave, Keymer, and Aronian are fighting for survival.

Carlsen said he was lucky to have as many points as he's earned, mentioning that his nerves haven't been good on this second day. Will he defeat Lazavik and still claim one of the top two spots?

You can listen to GM Hikaru Nakamura's recap below.

Previous coverage:

• Day 1: Lazavik, Carlsen On Perfect 3/3 After Surviving Rollercoaster 3rd Round
• Champions Chess Tour $500,000 Finals Kicks Off On December 17 In Oslo, Norway