Day 1 of this rapid knockout event got off to a strange start, as Wesley So left his queen en prise in the opening against Jan-Krzysztof Duda, not only losing the game but blowing the white pieces as well. In game two he recovered well enough to press most of the game with Black, and then in game three he won to level the match.
It was the fourth game that would decide the match, and it was exciting an exciting contest as Duda went all out for for mate playing with White in a King's Indian Attack. Perhaps he was following Anish Giri's advice, based on his experience in the Chess.com blitz match a month or so ago. Giri initially tried to battle So in positional play, and the strategy failed. So was consistently outplaying him. Then he decided to play for mate, and that approach bore fruit, both in the match and more recently in Leuven.
If this was Duda's strategy, it was working. While So was initially better, whether due to good instincts or good preparation is unknown, but inaccuracies came and his position grew dubious. Unfortunately for Duda, he burned too much time reaching the superior position. After missing several winning opportunities, he took his last (relatively) long think on move 28, and perhaps unable to work out 28.g4 or 28.Nxh7 to his satisfaction, played 28.Ng4. This was a mistake, both objectively and practically, and So had no trouble wrapping up the point and the match after this.
Tomorrow (now today), Viswanathan Anand will take on Jaime Santos in the other semi-final. For now, here are the So-Duda games, with some comments to the first and last games.