Giri has gone for a very slow burner of an opening, happy to just keep pieces on the board and bank on his higher up central pawn to mark the difference.
Giri hinting that he might sooner or later push another pawn towards the center, going for a patient build-up attack on the center and kingside.
MVL steps his bishop out, looking to provoke the pawn push. His argument is that this move will weaken Giri's queenside structure and undermine his bishop activity.
In these setups, players sometimes move their king up one square to step it out of a more dangerous diagonal. After that, they begin to push the pawns forward! Not the only plan, but one of the more likely options.
MVL might be looking to maneuver the knight to the strong square he now controls with his pawn.
There's a lingering danger here for MVL. If Giri jumps his knight forward, the central pawn is going to be looking very weak.
A nice practical move, cutting out the knight jump and offering to open up lines on the queenside. A good choice in this fast time control format.
Maybe we'll see Giri going for a knight maneuver here, in order to try to engineer some attacking chances on the kingside. Otherwise, right now with just one invader knight, Giri doesn't have enough firepower in the attack.
This move and the previous one look quite strange from Anish, moving first the bishop and then the king to the corner. That's buying MVL time to work on his piece coordination.
Giri allows a nasty tactic! Let's see if MVL spots it and capitalizes on this mistake!
MVL has always been known as a sharp tactician, and he does not fail to deliver on his reputation here! The board is collapsing for Giri...
Giri trying to save himself by muddying the waters, but now there's a very direct path to victory for MVL if he starts by taking the knight with his light-squared bishop!
This looks like the beginning of the end here for Anish Giri. He can't take the bishop without losing his queen, and if he takes the knight in the center that will simplify the position and make the task of converting easier for MVL. Plus, the French grandmaster needs just a draw to win the match!
Giri drops his knight back to block, self-pinning. It's not ideal, but the alternative of allowing rook takes knight was much worse.
MVL has gone for a very pragmatic approach, just forcing a completely equal endgame in order to keep the risk of blundering down to a minimum.
MVL should know how to draw this comfortably, but at least for now Giri has a passed pawn on the left hand side that might make MVL slightly uncomfortable at some point in the coming moves.
Now it becomes trivial for MVL. His pawn counteracts Giri's and we could see it down to bare kings in the next few moves.
A confident performance by the French grandmaster, who showed his skill with a comfortable first-game victory and then looked on his way to complete the match with a 2-0 routing of his Dutch opponent. In the end, MVL went for pragmatism above all else and chose to simplify the position in this game at the cost of his advantage, in order to keep risk down to a minimum. The strategy paid off, and he held a well-known rook and pawn endgame to push through to the upper bracket for the next round. Meanwhile, Anish Giri slips down to the lower brackets for a second shot at progressing to the later stages of the EWC Finals!