Magnus Carlsen and Arjun Erigaisi will play the finals of the Julius Baer Generation Cup! The exciting semi-final matches between Magnus Carlsen and Vincent Keymer, and Arjun Erigaisi and Le Quang Liem were played today on chess24.com.
Replay all games here / Semi-finals video coverage
S1: Magnus Carlsen vs Vincent Keymer 3-1
World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen defeated Vincent Keymer with a convincing 3-1 score. The first two games finished in a draw as Vincent Keymer played brilliantly. Carlsen won the third game since Vincent missed the only move to save the endgame with a pawn down. 81…Nc6?? was a terrible mistake, while 81…Nf5! could’ve saved the result for the 17-year-old German grandmaster. Keymer needed to win the fourth game to stay in the match and schedule the tiebreaks, but Magnus took all the initiative from the early part of the game and eventually scored. “I was very impressed with his play, he is very very strong. As you can see from the end of the game 3 and the game four, he still has some challenges with experience and practical play, but basically, he is a very good player”, said Magnus in the post-match interview.
S2: Arjun Erigaisi vs Le Quang Liem 4-2
The second finalist of the Julius Baer Generation Cup was determined in the tiebreak mini-match as the rapid portion finished with a 2-2 result. After the first game of the rapid part finished in a draw, Arjun Erigaisi took the lead as he defeated the Vietnamese grandmaster in the second game with whites. The third game finished in a draw and just when it looked that Erigaisi will get to the finals, Liem Le won the fourth game on demand and brought the match to the tiebreaks. The Indian 19-year-old crashed his opponent in the blitz match winning both of the games and taking his seat in the Finals against World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen. Erigaisi said in the post-match interview that qualifying to the finals means a lot to him. “It will be very interesting to play against Magnus Carlsen and I think I will learn a lot from it“, added Arjun.
The final match of the Julius Baer Generation Cup will be played over two days 24-25 September, with two 4-game rapid matches. If the result is 1-1 after two played matches, the winner of the event will be determined in the playoffs. The play-off consists of 2 blitz games, followed by an Armageddon game if the score is 1-1.
