
At just 19 years of age, indian grandmaster gukesh dommaraju has already crafted one of the maximum compelling current narratives in chess.
He rose to the top through dethroning then-world champion ding liren closing december to assert the no. 1 spot within the rankings. But after a loss to compatriot rameshbabu praggnanandhaa, who is the only indian other than viswanathan anand to win the tata metallic chess event, gukesh seemed to hit a downward spiral.
He struggled on the freestyle chess grand slam in weissenhaus, finishing the match with 0 wins, 11 attracts, and 6 defeats. Matters failed to improve much on the superbet chess conventional in romania, wherein he controlled handiest one win, six attracts, and defeats.
But, he grew to become things around at the norway chess tournament. The event featured his first win inside the match against magnus carlsen, a recreation that went viral when carlsen smashed the table after losing. Gukesh also claimed his first classical win towards arjun erigaisi. With just 1/2 a point isolating him from carlsen earlier than the final spherical, gukesh sooner or later completed 1/3.
Five-time world champion viswanathan anand, who mentors gukesh, turned into requested through chess.com to grade the youngster's overall performance after the norway event. He upgraded gukesh's report card from a 'c' to a 'b'.
"i assume i'm able to move up to b. He deserved a d, but he got a whole lot of answers accurate by some means. So it is a b. Given that he survived and based totally on his points, i'd give him a b," anand stated.
Earlier than norway chess, anand had been extra essential. "i suppose i might say simplest 'd minus', however wijk aan zee is pulling him to 'd plus' perhaps or 'c minus'," he had stated.
"he performed extremely nicely (at wijk aan zee). Type of rebound impact. You always have this fear that once the arena championship, you abruptly have a few emptiness. But in reality, for him, the first event changed into extremely a success. The rest of the yr has been extra discreet, which is also perhaps ordinary. Anyone treats him differently. He's locating his manner."
"what could i placed on a document card? I suppose 'desires in addition improvement' is form of obvious; 'ought to work tougher'... Something like that. He's nonetheless very sturdy and he just needs to find the proper connections once more," anand had brought.
Anand on gukesh's norway chess performance
Anand also touched upon the questionable selections gukesh made at norway chess, now not beneath time strain, however early in video games.
"at norway chess, gukesh made a number of questionable selections in his movements and not in time problem. He did it in the earlier section of the game. Quite a few humans criticized that, and that i suppose the criticism is fair. A number of it as a minimum," he said.
"the 2 video games he gained with magnus and arjun are surely the questionable ones. I'll grant you all that. However then allow me turn the identical query: what number of humans in the global can beat arjun and magnus from those positions?"
"there are numerous things to criticize approximately his play. He turned into under the identical time pressure as them. 2nd, if hikaru or magnus had escaped from a number of these positions, we would just say, 'but they're very strong.' equal common sense has to use here."
"i'm sort of conflicted. On the one hand, i experience we can not just say he performed a excellent match due to the fact he finished on 50%. Additionally, the reality which you have such protecting abilties would not imply you have to be relying on them all of the time. As an instance, maximum countries have armies so as not to use them all the time. You do not want to rely an excessive amount of on these talents. However you have got to say he changed into very innovative," anand concluded.
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