CHENNAI: Vidit Gujrathi made it four Indian men in the last eight of the FIDE World Cup (Open section) on Monday. After two grinding draws over as many days in the Classical format against Ian Nepomniachtchi, the Indian prevailed in the second set of tie-breaks to advance to the quarterfinals where he will face local lad Nijat Abasov.
After holding the two-time World Championship contender to draws with a shorter time control, Gujrathi won with both white and black to keep Indian dreams flying high in what is already a memorable event for the country. On Sunday, the trio of Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggnanandhaa and D Gukesh — all still in their teens — had already booked their spots in the last eight which will begin on Tuesday. There’s more news from an Indian perspective.
Magnus Carlsen is set to face Gukesh but the Norwegian is yet to decide about playing the Candidates next year. If Carlsen beats Gukesh but decides against competing in the 2024 edition of the Candidates, one of the three (Praggnanandhaa, Erigaisi or Gujrathi) will automatically advance to that event in Canada.
The match itself holds significant interest with the chess community waiting to see if the 17-year-old Gukesh is the real deal this early in his career. One Grandmaster who can’t wait for the match to commence is Srinath Narayanan. While he calls Carlsen the ‘favourite’, he’s not ruling out an upset. “Think Carlsen is a bit of a favourite,” he told this daily. “Gukesh is capable but he’s still very young. It reminds me of a young Carlsen v. Viswanathan Anand match-up. “Gukesh has become very mature so he’s also capable of handling many different positions but Carlsen is much quicker in terms of sensing things. He has better intuition right now. Gukesh, though, can calculate a lot, it’s something Magnus himself mentioned earlier this year.”
While in most games, you want to avoid playing the person and just focus on the field (the board in this position), in chess, it’s encouraged to play the person as well as the board. “There’s always an element of playing the person, especially in an over-the-board game. You have a very close view of body language, you sense everything... there’s a lot of non verbal communication that happens between the players.”
On the wider narrative of Indian teens who have arrived in the world of chess, Narayanan suggested it’s to do with a lot of reasons including the wider support for chess, all of them competing against each other and how the Olympiad turbo-charged their development. “It (three of the eight being Indians under the age of 20) doesn’t come as a surprise,” he said.
“These kids have become very strong, no doubts about it. The format also suits them, it’s a bruising tournament so you need to have lots of stamina. They have that stamina, unlimited energy and motivation. Don’t think there’s any one thing (a possible reason behind their jump in terms of progression). One of the main things could be that they have competed against each other at a very early age. When one of your peers is achieving something, you know that you are at least as good as them. If Pragg beats Magnus or Hikaru (Nakamura), it gives self-belief to the others as well.”
He also made the point that without the Olympiad at home, Pragg and Gukesh wouldn’t even have made the side. “We wouldn’t have fielded three teams so a lot of players wouldn’t have experienced it. Gukesh and Pragg wouldn’t even have played. That was definitely the breakthrough event for Gukesh. Maybe he already had that self-belief but scoring eight on eight on a stage like that... that strengthened it further.” He and the others will need that self-belief to keep the fire burning against the likes of Carlsen.
Harika suffers defeat In the women’s quarterfinal, India’s D Harika went down against Aleksandra Goryachkina in the third batch of tie-breaks. Harika had lost the first game of the first batch of tie-breaks with shorter time controls but fought back to take the tie to a second round of tie-breaks which finished 1 apiece. In the third stanza, Goryachkina won with black before holding her own with white to advance.
