Uzbekistan’s GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov leads the preliminaries of the Aimchess Rapid tournament after four rounds of play. It was GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov who stole the show, beating GM Magnus Carlsen and, brilliantly, GM Anish Giri.
The Aimchess Rapid tournament is already the last “regular” in the 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, before the end-of-season final event which starts on November 14. Aimchess Rapid features 16 players in a round-robin prelim stage before the field is cut to eight and knockouts begin.
The first four rounds of those preliminaries were played on Friday, with Abdusattorov reaching the highest score: three wins and a draw, good for 10 out of a possible 12 points. His strongest opponent was GM Richard Rapport, who was under pressure from the start of the endgame:
“It’s pretty nice to start with three wins,” said Abdusattorov. “I just want to play some interesting games, to see what I can learn from them. Today was a very good day obviously.”
Mamedyarov scored two fine wins on the first day. For starters, he took down Carlsen in the very first round, mostly because of a big, one-move mistake by the world champion:
In his white next game, Mamedyarov threw everything but the kitchen sink toward Giri: he sacrificed a pawn, an exchange, a piece, and then a queen!
Giri had just played a nice, sacrificial game himself the round before:
Aimchess Rapid | Round 4 Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Perf |
| 1 | Abdusattorov, Nodirbek | 2678 | 10/12 | |
| 2 | Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar | 2712 | 7/12 | |
| 3 | Carlsen, Magnus | 2902 | 7/12 | |
| 4 | Duda, Jan-Krzysztof | 2754 | 7/12 | |
| 5 | Keymer, Vincent | 2740 | 7/12 | |
| 6 | Rapport, Richard | 2735 | 7/12 | |
| 7 | Gukesh D | 2606 | 6/12 | |
| 8 | Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | 2691 | 5/12 | |
| 9 | Erigaisi Arjun | 2720 | 5/12 | |
| 10 | Aditya Mittal | 2569 | 5/12 | |
| 11 | Giri, Anish | 2737 | 4/12 | |
| 12 | Naroditsky, Daniel | 2617 | 4/12 | |
| 13 | Anton Guijarro, David | 2706 | 3/12 | |
| 14 | Hansen, Eric | 2618 | 2/12 | |
| 15 | Harikrishna, Pentala | 2679 | 2/12 | |
| 16 | Grandelius, Nils | 2632 | 1/12 |
All games rounds 1-4
The Aimchess Rapid, the seventh event in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, takes place October 14-20, 2022 on chess24. The preliminaries is a round-robin among 16 players, from which the top eight advance to the knockout stage. There, they play a match of four rapid games (15+10) in each round and if necessary, a blitz + armageddon tiebreak. The prize fund is $150,000.