MOSCOW, September 14 – Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi reached the quarterfinals of the online rapid chess tournament Speed ​​Chess Championship, where he will play with former world champion Norwegian Magnus Carlsen.

In the first round, the Russian defeated Indian chess player Arjun Erigaisi with a score of 15.5-14.5.

Initially, 33-year-old Nepomniachtchi was not included in the online tournament, reacting to his non-inclusion on his page on X (formerly the social network Twitter) with the message “I’m just not good enough.” However, it later became known that the Russian replaced the 17th world champion, Chinese Ding Liren, at the Speed ​​Chess Championship.

The current champion of the competition is American Hikaru Nakamura. At last year’s tournament, Nepomniachtchi reached the 1/8 finals, where he lost to the Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.