New Delhi: In the first meeting between the two after D Gukesh became the world champion, current world no.1 Magnus Carlsen defeated the Indian Grandmaster in the final 9th round of the round-robin stage in the ongoing Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour at Weissenhaus in Germany on Saturday. Though Gukesh had several chances of going for a draw, he was brave against Carlsen in pushing for a victory which eventually cost him the game.
Carlsen, who is rated as the best chess player in the world at present, lauded Gukesh for being in the match between the duo but insisted the reigning world champion was not brave when it mattered the most. Gukesh, playing with the white pieces, made a string start against Carlsen and controlled the game for a while before losing the plot towards the end.
The Norweigan Grandmaster, who had expressed his excitement ahead of his blockbuster clash with the reigning world champion, pointed out where Gukesh went wrong in the match. Carlsen said Gukesh took too many chances in the bag and though he was brave at the start, he squandered his opportunity when it was time for him to be brave again.
“Somehow I’d seen that he could play d4 but I was like one, hoping maybe he wouldn’t play it, two, hoping that I would find something and I checked it briefly afterwards, actually there is something with queen e8 and ip5, I mean that’s really difficult to find,” Carlsen told Take Take Take
“After that I was a bit disappointed because then the position was just equal and honestly after that I think it was just lack of experience on his part because he just took too many chances and then when it was time to be a little bit, he was really brave and then when it was time to be brave again he retreated but by the time he retreated it was very difficult to hold this position in practise and at that point, I thought my winning chances were great,” he added.
This was not the first time Carlsen pointed out faults in Gukesh’s strategies as he has previously criticised the reigning world champion during his World Chess Championship clash against China’s Ding Liren. Carlsen, at the time, had questioned Gukesh’s clock handling during the all-important match.
D Gukesh to take on Fabiano Caruana in quarter-finals
Despite facing a defeat against Carlsen and remaining winless in the round-robin stage in the first event of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, Gukesh managed to do enough with 7 draws and 2 losses to qualify for the quarter-finals of the tournament. The reigning world champion will now be up against world no.2 Fabiano Caruana in the quarters.
It was Caruana who chose Gukesh as his opponent in the final as the tournament rules allow the players finishing in the top three to pick their opponents in the quarter-finals. France’s Alireza Firouzja, who topped the table in the round-robin stage, chose Germany’s Vincent Keymer as his opponent in the quarter-final while Javokhi Sindarov surprisingly chose American Grandmaster and world no.3 Hikaru Nakamura, a seasoned player in the chess960 format.
World no.1 Magnus Carlsen praised D Gukesh and said the reigning world champion was brave in the clash between the two in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour. However, he insisted Gukesh was not brave when it was needed the most. Other Sports Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today
