World champion Gukesh during the Tata Steel chess tournament. (PHOTO: Jurriaan Hoefsmit via Tata Steel chess)
Magnus Carlsen has called World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju’s decision to resign after just 18 moves in the second game of the quarter-finals against Fabiano Caruana a “prudent one” as the 18-year-old had no chance to make a comeback.
“I think in these mini-matches a lot will hinge on a single game,” Carlsen told Take Take Take when asked about whether he was surprised that Caruana vs Gukesh match was so one-sided.
“Yesterday’s game could have gone either way and today of course it was never very likely that Gukesh was going to come back and honestly I think he made a kind of prudent decision just resigning when he realised that he was not going to make a comeback. Just see it as a bit of a lost event in that sense.
“He had his chance yesterday, he didn’t take it and then you move on.”
Gukesh is still winless at Weissenhaus. He lost to Alireza Firouzja and Magnus Carlsen in the rapid section to decide the seeding for the knockout phase. He just about snuck into the quarter-finals in 8th spot. And then, has lost both his games so far to Caruana in the classical format.
Meanwhile, Carlsen, playing Black defeated Nodirbek Abdusattorov o sail into the semifinals.
“I’m feeling really good,” said Carlsen.
“I was a little bit apprehensive going into the game today because I don’t know, I wasn’t feeling as fresh as the other days but honestly playing, it was a lot of fun. Really interesting position from the opening and I just had a very good time today. I felt very calm and it was good to play some classical.”
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Semifinals line-ups
Magnus Carlsen, Vincent Keymer, and Fabiano Caruana won their matches without a tiebreak, while Javokhir Sindarov defeated Hikaru Nakamura in a playoff. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Keymer will face Carlsen, while Sindarov takes on Caruana.
