Banter Blitz 2020 Final, Day 5: Carlsen, Le Quang Liem Advance

In what was no surprise at all, Magnus Carlsen steamrolled Anish Giri in the day's first match. He won the first three games before giving up a draw, and after winning game five he finally lost one game. No problem: he won game seven to finish things off with a 5.5-1.5 rout. Next up for Carlsen, a semi-final match with Levon Aronian.

The day's other quarterfinal match looked much less clear on paper, and so the result wasn't surprising, at least not to me. Le Quang Liem was the 2013 World Blitz Champion, and while Fabiano Caruana is the world's #2 in classical chess he rarely looks like a player of that caliber when it comes to blitz time controls. (I don't mean he's weak, obviously. But number two in the world in blitz? No way, not even close. On 2700chess.com, Caruana is #33 in blitz, at least if one only counts the world's top 100 in classical chess. Maybe he moves up or down a few spots in an online context, but at least at this point he's not competing at the same level as the world's best in blitz, most notably Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura.)

Le got off to a good start, winning game three after a couple of mostly normal draws. Then everything went nuts. Le was really, really winning in both games 4 and 6, but Caruana somehow survived them. Caruana was winning in game 5 - and also had a momentary chance to win game 6 - but again, everything finished in a draw. Finally, Caruana broke through in game 7 and won, leveling the match at 3.5 points apiece. Maybe this would have broken a lesser player, ruing his missed chances, but it was no problem for Le: he won game 8 in good style. Caruana had a significant advantage in game 9 but let it slip, and some rickety play in the resulting ending gave Le the chance to put an end to the match - which he did. He'll have the pleasure of facing Wesley So in the other semi-final.

I haven't seen a time set for the So-Le semi yet, but Carlsen-Aronian is set for tomorrow (Saturday) at 21:00 CEST = 3 p.m. ET. I would expect a Carlsen-So final, but I think both Aronian and Le could put up a fight if they don't fall into an early hole. Still...make your plans for a Carlsen-So final on Sunday.

Event page here.