Hi guys , we have the middle of one of the strongest chess tourney (the have played 8 rounds of 13 rounds) and we can say that it is a "strange" tourney,

The world champion Magnus Carlsen , yesterday lost of new chess star from Russia (Esipenko Andrey 2677) and with 4/8 he is at  8th position from 14 players.

First is the 17 years old non flagged (but he was born at Iran and lives in France) Firouzja Alireza (2749) that after 3 wins in row !! (black against Donchenko 2668, white against Duda 2743 and black against Harikrishna 2732 ) managed to surpass the 1st round loss from World Champion and be clearly first with 5.5/8.

Now 5/8 we have 4 players . Caruana 2823 , Giri 2764 , Esipenko 2677 and Van Foreest 5/8 .

Van Foreest score with 5/8 (2win and 6 draws) is a super result !! And we can say that the has an esy programme from the other players until the end....but he is also the lowest rated.   

Also Esipenko in the next 5 rounds we play with players lower than 2700 !!! So he has a big opportunity to make a better result !!

Grandelius as i predicted in the last free day , he could not play at this leve for the whole tourney but he is only 6th with 4.5/8.

Big dissapointements except Magnus Carlsen (loose 17.7 rating) are Vachier Lagrave (2784) with 3/8 loosing 18.8 rating and Duda 2743 with 3/8 loosing 10.8 rating.

But lets see who will be the big winner of the 1st strong tourney in the year. I would like to see a young player like Esipenko or Firouja.

PS The photo was print screened from https://www.twitch.tv/chess24 during streaming their games. Here you can  see the disappointment of the World Champion Magnus Carlsen during his game with Duda.