A day after having an incredible Rapid event, Classical World Champion Dommaraju Gukesh saw a dramatic freefall on the first day of the Blitz event at the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Chess Tournament in Zagreb on Saturday.The 19-year-old managed just 1.5 points from nine rounds in the Blitz event as he lost seven of his nine games.Gukesh’s lone win came against World No. 3 Fabiano Caruana.R Praggnanandhaa, the other Indian in the fray, had a mixed day where he scored 4.5 to slip to fourth in the overall standings with 13.5 points. He ended his day on a high with a win over fellow countryman Gukesh in the ninth (and final) round.
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With a score of 7.5/9 on the opening day of the SuperUnited Blitz, Magnus Carlsen has now emerged as the sole leader going into the final day.“Obviously, the score is shocking—and from what I could see, the games weren’t very good either,” Carlsen said of Gukesh’s performance.“The good thing for him is that it could not have gone any worse. It’s never easy to have an overnight lead in these tournaments; 4 points over me and 3 over Duda is a lot.“But it doesn’t feel like that much when you don’t have the experience. So far it’s been poor, but hopefully for his sake he can calm down and play with a different attitude tomorrow—because now he doesn’t have anything to lose, really.”Gukesh was at his prime in the rapid section, wherein he won as many as six games, including one against Carlsen, but the Indian was way below par in the blitz, which saw him losing six games on the opening day of the fastest version of the game.
Standings after round 9 (blitz)
Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 17.5); 2. Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Pol, 16); 3. D Gukesh (Ind, 15.5); 4. Wesley So (USA, 14.5); 5. R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 13.5); 6-7. Alireza Firouzja (Fra), Fabiano Caruana (USA) 13 each; 8-9. Anish Giri (Ned), Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzb) 11 each; 10. Ivan Saric (Cro, 10).
