World Champion D Gukesh’s quest for a victory continued as Hikaru Nakamura defeated him in the tie-breaker of the 5-8 place play-off at the Freestyle Chess Grand slam on Wednesday. (More Sports News)
🐻Gukesh was outsmarted in the second game of the tie-breaker after gaining a good advantage with his white pieces.
🎃 Gukesh made one tactical error and Nakamura pounced on it to reach the fifth-place play-off with Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan.
♈ The Indian will fight it out against Alireza Firouzja of France.
🎶 In the first game (Classic mode) of the two-game tiebreaker, Gukesh had to defend an inferior position with black.
🗹 It was only in the endgame that Gukesh managed to find some foothold before agreeing to the inevitable draw.
🥃 But the day belonged to Vincent Keymer who scripted a brilliant 1.5-0.5 victory over top-rated Magnus Carlsen of Norway.
🌸 Having won the first game in the tie-break, Keymer was just a draw away from sealing his berth to the finals and he didn’t disappoint the local fans either.
👍 Carlsen was put under pressure right from the word go despite having the white pieces and by move nine itself Keymer enjoyed an optical advantage.
ꦆ Carlsen fought back and even seized back the initiative for a short while but Keymer neutralised the position after an unforced error.
💟 Carlsen kept the battle on for as long as he could but once the exchange of last few pawns became imminent the result was in no doubt.
𒆙 The game lasted 48 moves leaving Carlsen to vie for the 3-4 place in the tournament.
𓆏 Keymer will now play the final against the winner of the match between American Fabiano Caruana and Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan.
