Since winning the World Chess Championship in Singapore last December, D Gukesh has been playing very well. On Saturday, he managed a tough draw against Jorden van Foreest and is now tied for first place with R Praggnanandhaa, who won against Alexey Sarana.
In the Tata Steel Masters, Gukesh also moved up to third in the live Elo ratings, though the FIDE ratings haven’t been updated yet.
D Gukesh Faces Arjun in Final Round of Tata Steel Masters
D Gukesh is now ranked World No. 3 with a rating of 2791.9, just behind Hikaru Nakamura (2802) and Magnus Carlsen (2833). Fabiano Caruana is in fourth place with a rating of 2790.2, followed by Nodirbek Abdusattorov (2774), Arjun Erigaisi (2772), Praggnanandhaa (2763.3), and Alireza Firouzja (2759.9). Viswanathan Anand has dropped from 10th to 12th place.
The chess legend, who is also the FIDE deputy president, doesn’t play in many tournaments now. He was supposed to compete in the first leg of the Freestyle Grand Slam Tour but withdrew.
On Saturday, Gukesh played through a tough endgame and will face Arjun in the final round on Sunday. If both Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa lose in the final, Abdusattorov could still have a chance to make it to the playoffs.
The game against Van Foreest was a thrilling battle. The turning point came when the Dutch GM sacrificed a piece with 34.Rxc4!?. Five moves later, with only three seconds left on the clock, he missed a chance to sacrifice back. Both players played the best moves until 42…Rb1?, which gave White the advantage, but Van Foreest missed that too. He then spent 30 seconds out of his 19 minutes to take the e-pawn and go for a draw.
After his draw, Gukesh was asked if he was keeping an eye on Praggnanandhaa and Nodirbek’s games as well. He replied, “A bit, but mostly I was just focused on my game. It was clear that Abdu had done something wrong and Pragg was dominating from the start.”
On facing Arjun in the next round, he said, “Quite nice, I am already happy today that I managed to escape this game, but everything is set up for an exciting finish. I will just try to enjoy.”
After the Tata Steel Masters, Gukesh will head to Germany for the first leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, where he will compete against players like Magnus Carlsen and Caruana.
