All posts tagged: Rapid Chess

Gukesh climbs to joint second at Grand Chess Tour Zagreb

Gukesh climbs to joint second at Grand Chess Tour Zagreb

Published by Webster

World champion D Gukesh recovered from an early setback to finish the second day of the Grand Chess Tour’s Zagreb leg in joint second place after six rounds of the rapid event on Friday. The Indian Grandmaster defeated Dutch player Anish Giri in the final game of the day, taking his tally to seven points. He now shares second place with Germany’s Vincent Keymer, France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Romania’s Bogdan-Daniel Deac. Alireza Firouzja continued to dominate the field, extending his lead to 10 points from a possible 12. The French Grandmaster holds a three-point advantage over the chasing pack heading into the final three rounds of the rapid section. Gukesh recovers after opening loss Gukesh’s day began with a defeat to Bogdan-Daniel Deac but the reigning world champion responded strongly by beating Jorden van Foreest before overcoming Giri in the final round. Facing Giri with the white pieces, Gukesh opted for the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation and gradually built a strong attack. The Indian capitalised on his opponent’s inaccuracies, won material and converted the advantage …

Magnus Carlsen beats D Gukesh twice at Clutch Chess; world champion at bottom of standings, world no 1 at top | Chess News

Magnus Carlsen beats D Gukesh twice at Clutch Chess; world champion at bottom of standings, world no 1 at top | Chess News

Published by Webster

World no 1 Magnus Carlsen defeated world champion Gukesh Dommaraju in both their games on day 2 of the Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown exhibition event before defeating Hikaru Nakamura twice and losing his games to Fabiano Caruana to surge into top spot in the four-player event. Gukesh, who was on top of the standings after day 1, slumped to last spot after winning no games on day 2. The format of the three-day tournament means that players earned one point for a win on day 1, two points for wins on day 2 and will earn three points for any victory on the final day, which means that the door is still open for Gukesh to win the whole event with a decent performance on the final day. Gukesh had three draws and three defeats on the second day of the event. Story continues below this ad “It was better than yesterday, but I mean I would like to have a little bit more control in my games than I did today, but you know, …

Magnus Carlsen’s brutal self-assessment: ‘My mind was not working at all today… got two more points than I should have’ | Chess News

Magnus Carlsen’s brutal self-assessment: ‘My mind was not working at all today… got two more points than I should have’ | Chess News

Published by Webster

Magnus Carlsen started his campaign at the Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown exhibition event with a victory over Gukesh Dommaraju, but ended the day in second spot behind the world champion from India. Out of the six rapid games Carlsen played against Gukesh, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana (two games against each opponent), Carlsen managed just two wins while losing once. Carlsen is playing in an over-the-board event after becoming a father recently. Asked about his assessment about his form, a candid Carlsen said: “It was terrible, but I’m feeling like really not good at all. I will say that I scored about two more points than than I should have probably today and I’m happy with that. But my mind was not working at all today. So, yeah, hopefully I can feel a bit better the next few days. Today my level of play was extremely poor.” After the first day of games in the three-day event, Gukesh is the sole leader in the four-player tournament, with Carlsen second, Hikaru Nakamura third and Fabiano Caruana …

Gukesh D loses first game to Magnus Carlsen, still leads at end of Day 1 in Clutch Chess with wins over Nakamura, Caruana | Chess News

Gukesh D loses first game to Magnus Carlsen, still leads at end of Day 1 in Clutch Chess with wins over Nakamura, Caruana | Chess News

Published by Webster

Reigning World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju lost his opening game of the Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown exhibition event to Magnus Carlsen but then bounced back to rack up three wins and two draws in his remaining games to end the first day of the event as the tournament leader. The even also features players like Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana. After the first day of the event ended, Gukesh has four points out of a possible six. Gukesh ended the day pocketing a cool $3000 as bonus for his three wins. After the first defeat against Carlsen, he held the world no 1 from Norway to a draw in game two. Then, he defeated Nakamura in their first game, before another draw. Against Caruana, Gukesh claimed two back-to-back victories to end the day on top of the four-player standings. “It started with the loss, but I was still happy with the game,” Gukesh told the St Louis Chess Club in an interview after the end of the day. Story continues below this ad ALSO READ | …

Praggnanandhaa finishes third at the Superbet Rapid and Blitz chess tournament

Praggnanandhaa finishes third at the Superbet Rapid and Blitz chess tournament

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Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa secured a commendable third-place finish at the Superbet Rapid and Blitz tournament in Warsaw, a key event in the Grand Chess Tour series. Slovenian Grandmaster Vladimir Fedoseev emerged as the champion with an outstanding total of 26.5 points, finishing well ahead of the rest of the field. France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave claimed second place with 21.5 points, while Praggnanandhaa followed closely behind with 20.5 points. Despite suffering several defeats in the blitz rounds, the 18-year-old Indian showed resilience, bouncing back with four wins in his final five games. He earned a prize purse of USD 25,000 for his overall performance. Fedoseev dominated the blitz section, collecting 7.5 points out of 9 games on the final day. His only loss came at the hands of Polish GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda. For his strong showing, he took home the winner’s cheque of USD 40,000. Vachier-Lagrave received USD 30,000 for finishing second. India’s Aravindh Chithambaram, playing in his debut Grand Chess Tour event, tied for seventh place with Duda, both scoring 17 points. Levon Aronian (USA) …

Gukesh finishes winless at Freestyle chess event | Chess News

Gukesh finishes winless at Freestyle chess event | Chess News

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Another year, another world champion struggles at Weissenhaus. One year after then world champion Ding Liren ended in last place after going winless at the Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge, Ding’s successor on the throne, D Gukesh too endured a winless tournament. The reigning world champion’s results sheet for the first event of Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour reads: zero wins, 11 draws and six defeats. At least he did not end up dead last like Ding did last year. Gukesh will also find solace in the knowledge that a few weeks ago, he almost won the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk Aan Zee (a tournament where Ding had also suffered on the board). Gukesh’s Weissenhaus event ended with a defeat in 30 moves to Alireza Firouzja on Friday. His 11 draws and six defeats span the nine round robin games played in the rapid format where he had two defeats and seven draws. Then, in the quarters, he lost both his classical time control games to Fabiano Caruana before two draws against Hikaru Nakamura, …

Raunak, Harika enter top 5 after first day of rapid

Raunak, Harika enter top 5 after first day of rapid

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Indian chess players had mixed results as Raunak Sadhwani and Arjun impressed while Humpy and Pragg fall behind on the opening day of the World Rapid & Blitz Championships in New York City, USA on Thursday. The opening day of the competition was very exciting as the top players like Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura had an off day while youngsters Lenier Dominguez and Raunak impressed everyone with their play. The 19-year-old Raunak Sadhwani caught the limelight as he made an upset victory against France’s title contender Alireza Firouzja and right now only Indian male player in the top 5 in the open category. He hasn’t lost a single game on the first day and with three wins and two draws is currently sitting in the fifth position with 4/5 points. Now, he will face Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan in the sixth round. Meanwhile, Arjun Erigiasi is closely chasing him at 12th position with the same number of points (4/5), having four wins and one loss on day 1. Whereas, Pragg had an off day …