D GUKESH found himself face to face with the world n ° 1 Magnus Carlsen for the first time since he was crowned world champion in December, to undergo his second defeat of the current tour of the chelem of the failures of Freestyle in Weissenhaus thanks to a late blunder.
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Gukesh Domomraju had finally realized his dream of becoming the youngest world champion in the history of chess after having beaten the great Chinese master Dingn Readn at the Fide World Championship in Singapore in December. And before he even could go home for the celebrations of a month that followed, he had already fixed his next target – testing himself against the best in the world, Magnus Carlsen to be more precise.
On Saturday, the Grand Master Indian 18 years old finally had the opportunity to face the world n ° 1 for the first time since he succeeded one of the most extraordinary exploits in the history of chess, although in a different format.
GUKESH, the only Indian in competition during the opening event of the Grand Chelem Freestyle tour in Weissenhaus, in Germany, after the steep withdrawal of Viswanathan Anandand, had a disappointing race in the puck scene Friday and Saturday .
Seven of the eight games he had played before the force test against Carlsen had ended with a draw, including six on the trot. And he had only undergone his third defeat since he was crowned world champion in the hands of the Grand Master of Iranian-French Alireza Firouzja, in just 27 movements to that.
However, none of this would have had any importance for Gukesh if he could beat Carlsen in the format he has tried to defend in recent months, even to the detriment of the Fide of the world director world.
Similarities with the Dingue of Ding in Singapore
It was a ding error in moving 55 in the 14th and last classic match which cost him the world championship and sealed the historic triumph of Gukesh on December 12. Realizing that he had locked himself in a corner by moving his squares to two squares in the “F” file in the second row, the 32 -year -old man resigned after the following three moves.
There were interesting parallels between this competition and the confrontation of Gukesh-Carlsen on Saturday. Like his opponent in Singapore, Gukesh played with white pieces. The two games witnessed ambitious decisions taken at the start of the game, the Indian starting an exchange of bishop by moving his piece from one end of the painting (A1) to the other (H8) during the fourth blow. And in both cases, the game was largely in a balanced state for a majority of its duration, to the dramatic touch which is in the form of an error towards the end.
In Singapore, Gukesh did everything in his power to fight, even when Ding made repeated offers for a draw, knowing that the Chinese GM would have the upper hand in the equality break that would have been played in the fast formats and Blitz The shortest. And it is this attitude to never say who led to a concentration launcher on the part of his opponent.
At Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort, Gukesh was against a player who is considered among the best to have played the game, Carlsen starting to recover his mojo after a disappointing 1 by collecting two victories and a draw. Things appeared enough in control for Gukesh until he decides to move his knight in D5 while trying to throw a trap around the king of Carlsen.
It was a role reversal for Gukesh on Saturday because this time, he was the only one to raise the white flag four movements after having made a huge error. Carlsen is not the kind of player who will allow his opponent to get rid of his scope in such a situation, and was able to seal things in style with a end of clinical game.
Fortunately for Gukesh, the defeat against Carlsen did not resolve an early outing of the Weissenhaus tournament when he managed to meet in the KO by finishing among the first eight – at the bottom of the qualification zone.
This means that it will not have the luxury of choosing your opponent for the quarterfinals, where time control will develop 10 minutes that had been fixed for the round scene towards the classic 90 + 30, some Something that gukesh is much more familiar with.
That said, he was able to sit in front of the Quinwegian World Champion later this week, perhaps as soon as Sunday, when the quarter-finals are underway. After learning a precious lesson on Saturday, Gukesh hopes to come back much stronger this time, especially with much more time in hand.
