Chess: Carlsen and Nakamura outwit young guns in offbeat Airthings Masters

Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, and Hikaru Nakamura, the five-time US champion and speed specialist, are the two big beasts of major online chess tournaments, and they demonstrated their subtle skills this week at the $235,000 Airthings Masters, the opening event of the year-long online Champions Tour. Their controlled and impressive approach in the matchplay rounds enabled them to see off challenges from the Indian teenagers Arjun Erigaisi and Dommaraju Gukesh.

In contrast, the world No 4 and anticipated future champion, Alireza Firouzja, qualified for the quarter-finals but then collapsed, losing five games in a row to exit the tournament. Firouzja has been absent from competition for several months for unknown reasons, and his tactical brilliance shone only fitfully in an error-strewn episode.

Unlike the three previous years of invitation events, the first meet of the 2023 Chess.com Tour was open to any grandmaster. Its entry of nearly 150 GMs was an impressive mix of three generations: former legends such as Vlad Kramnik, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Peter Svidler, and Gata Kamsky battled with current top 10s such as Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Wesley So, and the new generation led by Firouzja and the Indian teens.

It was disappointing that the “Ginger GM”, Simon Williams, was the only English entry. Williams finished 95th with 3.5/9, a good performance against high calibre opposition, although insufficient to qualify among the top 54 who would contest the later stages with financial rewards of thousands of dollars.

David Howell is a commentator, and Airthings clashed with Bundesliga matches which involved Michael Adams, Gawain Jones and Luke McShane, but for England’s many other GMs this was a rare opportunity