At the just concluded Superbet Classic in Romania, Dommaraju Gukesh and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa were the biggest beneficiaries from an Indian perspective.
They ended the tournament, part of the Grand Chess Tour, with five points each out of possible nine.
Both Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa secured a solitary victory in the tournament. Gukesh won against Romanian wildcard entry Bogdan-Daniel Deac while Praggnanandhaa took the better of the Netherlands’ Anish Giri.
The tournament ended with 38 out of the 45 games being drawn.
Reacting to the development, Gukesh said, “I am unable to remember when was the last time I made eight draws in a row.”
However, it was Anish’s masterclass that enabled the Indians to get a second shot at the Championship as Anish decimated the leader of the tournament Fabiano Caruana in the last round of the tournament, while the others drew their game.
The loss for Caruana resulted in a four-way tie-breaker between him, Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, and Alireza Firouza.
The tie-breakers were decided by 10+5s rapid round robins where Fabiano presented his best version of himself.
He swept the three youngsters to register a victory in the Superbet Classic, which also earned him five points in the Grand Chess Tour and took his total tally to 9.25 points.
Praggnanandhaa leads GCT
After the second Leg of the GCT, Praggnanandhaa strengthened his position as the leader of the tour accumulating 16.25 points after his good shows at Superbet Rapid, Blitz Poland and Superbet Classic Romania.
The FIDE Candidates champion and challenger for this year’s World Championship, Gukesh bounced back on his return to classical chess after a disappointing first leg of GCT. Gukesh currently sits in the second position in the standings of the Grand Chess Tour with 10.25 points.
Gukesh also gained a 3.2 Elo rating points ending the Superbet classic with 2766.2 Elo at World No. 7 and Praggnanandhaa gained 5.5 Elo rating points and attained the ranking of World No. 7 with a rating of 2762.5.
Praggnanandhaa would have been the winner of the tournament had the Sonneborn-Berger tie-break system been used in the tournament instead of Rapid tie-breakers. Praggnanandhaa had a season-best tie-break score of 22.25, 0.25 ahead of Fabiano Caruana.
Also, Praggnanandhaa ended with a performance rating of 2794 at Superbet Classic, just a point behind Firouza’s 2795.
The performance rating of Gukesh in the tournament was 2792.
Gukesh’s focus will now shift to Croatia as he will battle it out with Magnus Carlsen and other top Grand Masters in the third leg of GCT at Superunited Rapid and Blitz in, Zagreb.