Magnus Carlsen made it to the quarter-finals of the chess event at the Esports World Cup being played at Saudi Arabia’s Riaydh along with Arjun Erigaisi (Group B), Alireza Firouzja (Group C) and Levon Aronian (Group A). Carlsen, representing Team Liquid, qualified from Group D.
Carlsen had a win and a draw against Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Jan-Krzysztof Duda to make the cut for the quarter-finals.
Carlsen said that making the cut got a little complicated in the end.
“These games were incredibly complicated and definitely out of control at times. But at the end of the day you only need to play better than your opponent. When it’s complicated then both players are going to make mistakes. I felt for the most part that I was in the driver’s seat,” Carlsen said in an interview with Take Take Take.
The Esports World Cup, where chess is making its debut, is being played in a unique set-up: with players wearing noise cancelling headphones, two players sitting face to face while playing on computers on a grand stage while being cheered on by live audiences. There is also music playing. Another unique feature of the tournament is that there are no increments which means players can lose by flagging (time running out on their clocks).
“I don’t know if it’s helping my game (having the crowd on the main stage). But it’s nice to have with the set-up: the noise-cancellation, with the music and everything. I sort of treat it as if I am playing from home,” Carlsen smiled.
Carlsen, Erigaisi, Aronian and Firouzja await the four other quarter-finalists who will come from the Losers Brackets: Ian Nepomniachtchi, Vladislav Artemiev, and Andrey Esipenko in Group A, Anish Giri, Nihal Sarin, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in Group B, Javokhir Sindarov, Wei Yi, and Hikaru Nakamura in Group C and Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Fabiano Caruana, and Jan-Krzysztof Duda in Group D.
