The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Gukesh on the cusp of historic win
Indian 17-year-old is half a point ahead of Nepomniachtchi, Nakamura and Caruana at Candidates with final round to go
AFTER THE exhausting three-week-long marathon that is the Candidates, comes the mad dash to the finish line with four runners trying to breast the tape. D Gukesh, the youngest of the lot at 17 years of age, inched ahead of the three veterans by half a point heading into the final round by defeating Alireza Firouzja in Round 13.
The other three challengers — Ian Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana — are half a point behind Gukesh heading into the final round. The Indian holds his fate in his hands as he plays Nakamura in Round 14 while Nepomniachtchi and Caruana are up against each other.
In Round 7, the French grandmaster Firouzja had inflicted a morale-crushing defeat on Gukesh which had prevented him from becoming the sole leader heading into the halfway point. It was a game where the Indian teenager held the upper hand all throughout but got trapped in time trouble before losing. On Sunday, though, there was no such drama.
From the start, Gukesh chased victory knowing that Firouzja has been shaky all tournament for one reason or another. In another game, Nepomniachtchi and Nakamura were facing each other, so this was his moment to floor the accelerator.
Gukesh felt that the Frenchman was getting over ambitious early on, so he bid his time.
“After he played 17…Re8 (rook to e8 by Firouzja) I felt that the position was getting a bit messy,” Gukesh said at the press conference. “After 22. Bb3 (bishop to b3 by Gukesh), I think he got over-optimistic and started pushing for more. Although my pieces looked passive, strategically, I knew if I consolidated, I would be better.”
As the game crossed the 30-move marker, time on the clock started to wear thin for both players. So the two players played out a little passive-aggressive dance of the rooks. With just 2:31 seconds on the clock to make five more moves, Firouzja shifted his rook to g6 on an open file that gave the rook a clear view deep into Gukesh’s territory. Two moves later, Gukesh’s rook did a little sidestep to shift to d1 looking to spring a trap on Firouzja’s rook. The Frenchman’s rook replied with a sidestep of its own to take cover. Gukesh responded by moving his rook on the freshly vacated g file only to see Firouzja’s rook jump in front of it. Now, it was Gukesh’s rook’s turn to take cover. To the spectators watching, it was a signal that the players were playing for a draw by threefold repetition.
But Gukesh later admitted it was just a ploy to get past the 40-move mark which gets players an additional 30 minutes (plus increments for every move made).
When someone pointed out that the engine thought the position at that stage was equal, Gukesh was surprised. “That’s news to me. I thought I was clearly better. So I was just playing those moves to cross time control,” he said at the press conference.
Once both players’ clocks were infused with a fresh gulp of time, Firouzja erred on the 45th move: moving his queen to g6. In essence he had thrown his queen in front of Gukesh’s queen, offering a trade. That was
the start of the end of the Frenchman. In 17 more moves, he was defeated.
“That queen to g6 move from him gave away any hope (he had of winning). I was very happy to see that,” Gukesh admitted.
Vaishali strings together wins
There was a point in the candidates tournament where Vaishali Rameshbabu had endured a series off our defeats. She was heading for her fifth defeat in a row in the Round 10 clash against nurg yul salim ova. the computer was sounding the death knell on the Indian’s chances of surviving with even a draw. Then, lady luck smiled on Vaishali. In the span of a few moves, Vaishali went from a completely losing position to being in a situation where a draw was on the table. But Salimova refused to repeat moves, forcing the game to continue. Eventually, she would come to regret that as Vaishali won the almost six-hour, 88-move marathon .“id on’ t know( howi managed this ). I had a completely lost position against Salim ova. it was a lucky win. both of us were in time trouble. Then something happened,” Vaishali admitted after that game.
But since that slice of luck, the 22-year-old grand master has crafted her own success story in the women’s section, stringing together three more wins, including victories over Aleksandr ago ry achk ina, anna muzychuk and Lei Tingjie. Both Goryachkina and Tingjie have been contending for the title at various points during the event, so the series of victories should reinforce plenty of faith in Vaishali.