World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen described his play as “completely unacceptable” as he spoilt a good position and stumbled into a mating net against Yu Yangyi before getting comprehensively outplayed by Jan-Krzysztof Duda on Day 2 of the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge. In between he grabbed a win against Wei Yi and should be close to qualifying for the quarterfinals, but it’s Hikaru Nakamura and Sergey Karjakin who can truly rest easy after scoring a win and 3 draws each to maintain the lead on 5.5/8.
A tough day for the World Champion
Magnus Carlsen finished with 3/4 on Day 1 after playing the top 4 players not named Magnus in the event, and could have expected the final two days of the preliminary stage to be a chance to have some fun. For the first 18 moves against Yu Yangyi in Round 5 it seemed that might be the case:
