Quang Liem and Carlsen attended the last leg of the Champions Chess Tour

On August 18, the organizers announced the list of 16 players to attend Aimchess US – the last leg of the Champions Tour system. Besides Quang Liem and Carlsen, there are 14 other players including Levon Aronian, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Alireza Firouzja, Leinier Dominguez, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Vidit Gujrathi, Vladislav Artemievest, Jorden van Fore Daniel Naroditsky, Eric Hansen and Awonder Liang.

The August 2021 standard Elo of these 16 players averaged 2,726, including 12 Super Grandmasters. The tournament brings together five players in the top 10, including Carlsen, Aronian, Mamedyarov, Giri and So. The participants in Aimchess US were much stronger than Chessable Masters – where Quang Liem unexpectedly finished second.

Aimchess US takes place from August 28 to September 5, the competition day starts at 10 pm, Hanoi time. In the first three days, 16 players played in a quick round robin, selecting eight high-scoring players to advance to the quarterfinals.

This is also the last chance for players to accumulate to attend the Tour Finals, which will take place at the end of September 2021. Tour Finals includes eight players with high achievements in stages, and two invitations. There are six players guaranteed for the Tour Finals: Carlsen, So, Aronian, Teimour Radjabov, Giri and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Hikaru Nakamura is also likely to be the seventh slot.

Vachier-Lagrave is eighth on the Tour with 64 points, Artemiev 52 points in ninth, and Quang Liem with 30 points in 10th place. The top player Aimchess US will add 40 points, and the second place will get 25 points. They will get an extra 10 points if they top the qualifiers and then drop down to one point for the eighth place in the qualifiers. Quang Liem almost had to top Aimchess US to surpass Vachier-Lagrave.

But, if he maintains his position in the top 10 on the Tour, Quang Liem will have the opportunity to receive an invitation to attend the Tour Finals. The prize fund for Tour Finals is up to 300,000 USD. The total prize money of Aimchess US is 100,000 USD.

Xuan Binh