The Airthings Masters kicked off the new 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour season with a day of drama that saw Magnus Carlsen suffer a nightmare start to the defence of his crown. Norway's World Champion began the $1.6 million Tour with a clean win over last year's breakout star Vladislav Artemiev in Round 1. It seemed to suggest he was carrying his recent solid form into this event.
But any thoughts that Carlsen - a notoriously slow starter - would dominate the first day were quickly dispelled. Carlsen's Round 2 game saw him narrowly escape defeat with a shaky draw against the impressive new World Rapid Champion, 17-year-old Uzbek Nodirbek Abdusattorov
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