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World No 1 Magnus Carlsen underlined his superiority, winning the first two games in the opening match of the final against teenaged Indian Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi in the Julius Baer Generation Cup rapid online chess tournament in New York.
After the first set of matches of the two-match finale, the Norwegian ace with a 2.5-0.5 victory, holds the advantage. The Indian now needs to win the second four-game match to take the final to the blitz tie-break.
Carlsen was in imperious form in the first match and won in 40 moves with white pieces. In the second, the Norwegian upped the ante and claimed a win in 29 moves.
Erigiasi did well to hold the rampaging World No 1 to a draw in the third game but that did not stop Carlsen from closing out match one comprehensively.
"It's just evident that he's the better player but hopefully things will go my way and I'll try to play my best chess," Erigaisi was quoted as saying after the first match, appearing to sound optimistic.
The Warangal-based Erigaisi had beaten Liem Quang Le of Vietnam to march into the final. He had done well to finish second in the preliminaries behind Carlsen, who was in stupendous form with 34 points leaving the rest of the field way behind.
The second match of the US$150,000 event will be held later on Sunday.
The event features 16 players spanning three generations.