No Way He Missed It! | Wei Yi vs Alexander Grischuk | Esports World Cup 2026

He took it well, I feel like, because he's already focusing on the next game. Missed winning opportunity by Alexander Grishuk, but now he has the white pieces. He was surprised in the opening by Wei Yi, and then he ended up having an advantage with the black pieces, even though he was the one that had to react to this surprise choice by the Chinese Grandmaster. Now with colors reversed, Alexander Grishuk is also going for not one of the main lines. I love it. I like it. Feels like it's a psychological battle between the two, because in the first game, it also was a Sicilian Neidorf and Wei Yi played a very rare sideline and tried to surprise his opponent. And now it is Grishuk. He's like, you do this to me. I'm going to do it to you as well. So here you go. Let's play a very rare line with the bishop on c4, pawn on d3 and rook e1. I have no idea what even he's planning to do here. Is he going to go for some sensual break here? But Wei Yi is immediately trying to surprise him with another rare move, h6, just to get the opponent out of the prep. Everyone wants to try to get the surprise element in and make the opponent spend precious seconds, if not precious minutes on the clock. And while this game ended in a draw in game one, the other match in the lower bracket for the qualification spot between Alexander Bortnik and Andrew Tang, that was a win by checkmate by Bortnik in game one. So Andrew Tang needs to strike back. That's also a best of four. So three more games to go in both matches. And both cases are about if you win, you qualify to the main event in chess at the Esports World Cup. One and a half million dollars is the prize fund of the main event. Even last place is $25,000. Could be the biggest paycheck of your career. Huge stakes, high pressure on all the remaining four players. And for Andrew Tang, must win situation at some point. If not this game, the next game, he needs to strike back. And the word is, he did it with 0.6 seconds left on the clock. This must have been a bit of a tense moment there for both players. They were having incredible time scrambling. This is also one matchup. If you're going to have a chance after this one, I would love to see at least some bits from that game. Two very exciting young rummsters. But here in this game, Grishuk has decided to respond h6 with h3. There's a bit of mind games, cat and mouse games here. Try not to reveal the setup just yet. And I do feel, Anna, that at this stage, the players are on their own. And g5, I love it. I like it a lot. So dynamic, so aggressive. The king is still in the middle of the board for black, but he's going for an immediate kingside attack, ready to push the jeep onto g4, open up the g5 for the black pieces. The rook could come to g8. And later, Wei Yi, I would think that he will try to castle queenside if there will be trouble in the central files. And here comes white's counterattack, which supposedly makes sense. I mean, there is a rule. When your opponent is starting a flank attack, you want to meet it with a counterstrike in the center. And I'm looking at this position, Anna, and I'm wondering, is there no b5 move here? b5 and c4, but apparently not. I think I just noticed queen f3. Let's move on. Queen c7 was played very quickly here by Wei Yi, targeting the rook on e5. And g4 might still happen. Yeah, g4, b5, and all those pawn pushes are in the air. The rook is now hanging. So Grishuk needs to react to that, either defend the rook or drop it back. Where do you go? I don't want Wei Yi to drop back. I want to somehow leave the impression that I'm fighting for the initiative there. Queen e2. I like this move. Piling up the pieces at the e-file. Maybe be aggressive with some developing moves like knight c3, f4. See what happens. Black plays it cautiously. Bishop g7 here. Bishop g7. In the future, there could be discovered attacks once the knight jumps away. The bishop will be looking at that e5 rook. Yeah, also a big question for White. How do you continue? Do you keep doubling it down on the attack and maybe play something like a 4 or continue development? Wait a second. Wait a second. Blunder alert. Knight to c3 is a blunder. Now the discovered attack is extremely strong. Knight to g4, sacrificing the knight, but you end up capturing the rook on e5. And because the knight will be on g4, it's also a checkmate threat if the rook moves away. Alexander Grischuk completely blundered that discovered attack. How powerful it is right now with knight to g5. But he plays it. The winning move is on the board. Move 12 only. Move 12 and the Chinese Grandmaster is winning. How often do you see this at this level? That one of the best players in the world, Alexander Grischuk, the three-time World Blitz champion, is lost on move 12 with White. It's really a rare sight. And you could also see that he was trying to hide his emotions because I'm pretty sure, Anna, as soon as he played knight c3, he saw knight g4 immediately. That's how it goes. And of course, the Chinese Grandmaster immediately spotted this. He did play knight g4. And now it's all about how do you limit the damage here? How do you make Black's position as complex as possible? Do you keep the queens on the board or you try to grab as much material as you can? That's the question. Such a difficult moment for Grischuk. And you are right. As soon as he landed his knight on c3, he noticed that. He tried to maintain his poker face, but he spots the opportunity regardless. And he's going to end up winning material. Again, if the White Rook were to move, then the queen is coming in to h2 with a check. And after king f1, it's checkmate in the corner. Checkmate in two if the Rook moves away. It's really hard to recover from something like this. And according to an engine, the best move is Rook takes on e7. But I'm not sure that this is going to happen because this allows Black to simplify the position and trade the queens. My money would be on something like f4. Try to keep more pieces on the board. Black probably is going to collect this Rook on e5. After f4, you take on e5. At least this gives you this opportunity to keep the queens on the board. Currently, Grischuk has to make a major decision. Does he try to limit the damage or complicate things? He takes on e7. That's the best chance for him according to the computer. And he goes for it because even though it leads to him having to sacrifice the Rook, at least he picked up a pawn and a knight for it. Now, the pawn on g4 can be taken by the bishop and the queens are off of the board. But it's an endgame where Grischuk will try to fight really hard to have some remaining chances. So exchange out for White Rook fighting against a knight. There are just no good choices. I actually thought maybe f4 was a better attempt. But he simply decided he's going to try to limit the damage. He's only down an exchange in the other position. There was even more material here. And yeah, he's trying to organize some sort of a counterplay against the pawn here on c5. Which, by the way, you cannot defend it with this queenside pawn because you need to watch out for some knight jumps. Black is technically winning, but there's a lot of work to do. So much work to do. Good news for Wei Yi that he also has way more time on the clock. After Grischuk blundered, he sank into a very long thing. And that is now over a two-minute time advantage for Wei Yi. So, winning position for Wei Yi. And he is also ahead on the clock. All right. Rook c8 was played. Defending the pawn. Are there some tricky knight jumps? I suppose the Black King is going to walk away. I think this is right now what Grischuk is looking at. Can I try to somehow collect this pawn with some tactical tricks? I quite don't see it. So, maybe you have to address this b5 push with a4. Obviously, you want to keep as many pieces on the board as you can. Otherwise, if Black will be able to simplify the position, it's going to be over for Grischuk, at least in this game. And if this game goes down and the way it's looking, it could be a very good news and much closer qualification for Wei Yi. Again, this is a best of four. Each match in the round of four for the qualification spot. So, only two games will remain after this one. With an advantage after two games in a best of four, Wei Yi will have the white pieces in the next game on top of everything. It's very, very hard for Grischuk. And look at Osaki's clock. He's just not seeing it. How does he even continue on this game? And again, in your fresh memory is this blunder, which it's so hard to forget. There's no queens on the board. You can't go for any attack. Knight e4. Finally, Grischuk decides to go for some sort of a counterattack against this pawn. And of course, black immediately goes for the trades. He does trade the bishops on d4. Grischuk is pushing a4 to prevent the black pawn from being able to go to b5. He's trying his best to keep the position at least solid. It is a winning position for Wei Yi. But again, it's still not done. This is speed chess. No increment. Mouse slips happen. Mistakes happen. Blunders happen. For now, though, with the extra three minutes, it's looking amazing for the chances of the Chinese grandmaster and his qualification to the main event in chess. Again here, I think Alexander needs some kind of a miracle from his opponent, some kind of an assistance, some kind of a mistake from a black to just to stay alive in this game. So right now he decided to build up some kind of a fortress. The bishop on c4 remains because you cannot allow the black rook to crash through the defense with something like rook c2. And b6. I wonder what's the idea of this move. Does he want to play a5, fix the queen side, trade the bishops at the right moment, and play the pawn majority at the king side? There might be more than one good plan here. So many possible plans. But what remains still the same is that Alexander Grischuk not only is in a really tough position, but he also has a lot less time. And again, without increment, this is all the time you have left, two and a half minutes. You can see the facial expressions, the head shaking. Grischuk is really not liking what happened. He still might be going through that blunder moment in his head. As you said, it's so difficult to forget it and accept that now you are in a lost position with also no time on the clock. But he is not going to give up, of course. Alexander Grischuk is going to fight until the very end. And that's precisely what he is doing. He is very, very carefully approaching the pawn on c2, which is his biggest weakness in the position. I think he wants to land his king on d2, take care of the queen side, and give his queen side rook a better square at the king side. And this is where black immediately starts to go for an attack, pushes back white's pieces. And how do you convert? How do you simplify the position? Anna, I'm looking at some sort of a b5 push, but probably at the right moment. I want to get to the pawn on c2, but at the same time, I also want to make sure there's no counterplay suddenly, which is coming through at the a-file. Yes, you definitely don't want to give that counter chance to Grischuk to get his rook in. But what he says, I have everything figured out, everything is calculated, pushing b5 to get to the c2 pawn of white. Apparently, it works. I was a bit concerned there, but he just made it sure that to do is not tackle tricks. And by the way, Grischuk is not yet taking the pawn on b5. He is probably realizing that the best course of action here is some kind of fortress. All right. Finally, the trade happened here. Is there a check here? He can win a pawn, by the way, on f5, but no, he plays rook a7. He did not give the check, but then he was a bit shocked or surprised by his own decision. So he might be regretting it slightly, because now the rooks can be doubled on the c-file. And how will you guard at c2 pawn? You have to come back and have a really passive rook. Yeah, I don't know. I think that objectively, he was losing anyway. And maybe this was a chance, but now it's gone. B4, I like this move. I think he wants to reroute his kingside knight. Now help it to defend the queenside, potentially. But also, I think that this is going to allow black to organize a passed pawn at kingside. There you go. There goes Grischuk's knight. It's heading somewhere here to cover the queenside, but it's not going to be enough. No, unfortunately for Grischuk, it's a very slow maneuver. And the kingside pawns are marching. There's going to be an h-passed pawn for Wei Yi once you push h3. This pawn is really a beast here. Maybe g3, play a fortress. No, it's not a fortress here. White goes to stop the h-pawn. Here comes the black king. And now I think it's just a technically winning position. First, defend the pawn. Something like rook h8 or rook h6. Both moves look really good. And the king is going to decide the fate of the game. Unfortunately for Alexander Grischuk, this is a completely lost endgame. He's trying to at least grab the pawn on d4 with his knight. But it will not matter once the black king enters the position and supports the passed pawn of h3. I think a simple move, king f3, king g2, just wins the game. Ah, maybe king f3, he wants to play rook h2. That's his idea. So black can also defend the central pawn with rook d8. By the way, king f3 was played. And there you go. Finally, black, I think, is crushing through. Crushing through with that really nice move, the rook defending the d4 pawn from the side. And the other rook is coming in now through the back rank. This is a winning endgame and also so much more time for the Chinese grandmaster. So we are just witnessing the final moments of this game. I think that Grischuk knows there's zero chances in this game anymore. Maybe he's just trying to get over it, get in the rhythm, already mentally prepare for the next game. h2 is played. I think he might be preparing for the next game. It's a best of four. And he will have to try to strike back in game three. The qualification spot is on the line with a huge prize fund at the main event in chess at the Esports World Cup. This could be the highest stakes game of their life and the highest stakes match when it comes to the prize money that's up four grabs. And we see a very classy rook trade by way. Ye Alexander Grischuk resigns. And the next game will start in just a few seconds. It's a best of four. But right now, looking great for Chinese grandmaster Wei Yi who is leading with a point. And if he wins the next game, there will not even be a fourth game. He will have a qualification.