2021 Grand Chess Tour

World No. 5 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov finished with 6.0/9 points to win 1st place in the 2021 Superbet Chess Classic, clinching victory after a draw with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the final round. Tying for second place were Levon Aronian, Wesley So, and Alexander Grischuk, who each drew their last-round games to finish with 5.0/9.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov maintained his full-point lead in the 2021 Superbet Chess Classic, forcing a quick draw against Giri while neither of his closest rivals were able to make progress in the standings. The only decisive victory went to Levon Aronian, who won his second game in a row to give himself an outside chance of catching up to the leader.

Things couldn’t have gone better today for World No. 5 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov as he defeated Fabiano Caruana in explosive fashion to win his third game in a row in the 2021 Superbet Chess Classic. Meanwhile, previous co-leader Alexander Grischuk lost a difficult game to Levon Aronian, leaving Mamedyarov with a full-point lead ahead of the field.

It was an exciting day of chess as Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Alexander Grischuk both won their games today to remain in the lead after Round 6 of the 2021 Superbet Chess Classic. The two leaders are currently on 4.0/6, while previous co-leader Wesley So is just a half-point behind with three rounds left to play.

World No. 9 GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov won the only decisive game of the day today as he defeated GM Constantin Lupulescu with the Black pieces, catching up to the leaders with a score of 3.0/5. With all four other games drawn, Mamedyarov, So, and Grischuk lead the event heading into the first and only rest day.

Round 4 of the 2021 Superbet Chess Classic saw two new leaders emerge, as Wesley So and Alexander Grischuk both won their games against the previous day’s leaders, Fabiano Caruana and Bogdan-Daniel Deac.

Despite a quiet start to the round with two short draws, the action quickly heated up as Aronian secured an edge against Caruana and Giri looked to be on the initiative against Lupulescu. Aronian’s advantage was eventually liquidated, while Giri ended up overpressing the attack, and  soon blundered into a vicious counterattack from the Romanian No 1.

Round 2 saw some exciting action in Bucharest as World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana won a clean game against the local GM Constantin Lupulescu, while tournament newcomer GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac managed to score a stunning upset over Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, joining Caruana at the top of the leaderboard with 1.5/2.

All five games were drawn today as the 2021 Grand Chess Tour kicked off with its first event of the year, the 2021 Superbet Chess Classic, a 10-player classical round-robin taking place in Bucharest, Romania. While three of the games were drawn after just an hour of play, all eyes were on local favorite GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac, who missed a serious chance to upset one of the tournament favorites, GM Anish Giri.