Quarterfinals of the Opera Euro Rapid produce Carlsen-MVL and So-Radjabov semifinal pairings - Day 5

The final day of the Opera Euro Rapid quarterfinals produced almost too much action to recount. First of all Wesley So built on his success of day one against Jan-Krzysztof Duda and won both the games played to go through. So is due to win one of these tour events, this could be it. Then Maxime Vachier-Lagrave went through, after his complete disaster in the over the board Tata Steel tournament he's looked a little back to his normal self. He only needed to draw the set against Levon Aronian today and won the first game but he went down in game three and had to hold on for a draw in the final game to go through. Magnus Carlsen can count himself extremely lucky to go through against Daniil Dubov, Carlsen started to make losing mistakes in almost all his games and it was only when Dubov started making equally serious errors in return that the World Champion went through in a final Armageddon tie-break. Teimour Radjabov prevailed over Anish Giri by winning a second blitz tie-break game in a match that could have gone either way.

I think a rest day between the preliminary and knockout sections would make a really big improvement to the Champions Chess Tour. As a spectator and reporter of these events I'd like it. One rest day would improve the quality of the chess, Even at this stage - after the quarter finals - there's evidence that endurance is becoming too big a factor.

Further details in the body of the article.

Semi-finals. Thursday 11th Feb 4pm GMT: Wesley So vs Teimour Radjabov - a repeat of the Skilling quarterfinal pairing. Magnus Carlsen vs MVL.