If you still didn’t believe that chess has the potential to be cruel, you only had to pay attention to the three Round 4 games of the open section at the Norway Chess on Thursday.
A day after 18-year-old Praggnanandhaa claimed one of the most significant results of his fledgling career in classical chess by defeating five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen, the Indian teenager was handed a defeat by World No 3 Hikaru Nakamura. While Nakamura had claimed an advantage early on in the game, Pragg fought resolutely trying to ward off the seemingly inevitable. But eventually, his defences caved in and he resigned after 86 moves when he realised he had walked headfirst into a checkmate.
Pragg clutched his forehead almost immediately after making the move 85.kf5 (king to f5) realising the game had slipped from his clutches.
What was fascinating was that Nakamura made constant visits to the confessional booth set up by the organisers of the Norway Chess tournament where players can speak about anything in the middle of the game in full view of cameras and with their words being caught by mics.
At one stage, Nakamura confessed that he was getting “bored”.
LIMITED USED IMAGE of Hikaru Nakamura at the Norway Chess 2024 tournament in Stavanger. (Photo via Norway Chess / Stev Bonhage to be used only during Norway Chess 2024).
“This (visiting the confessional booth) is becoming too much of a regular occurance, because my opponents are thinking too long in every game. Even though I like my position I am honestly just bored out of my mind, which is probably why I’m back here again,” adding that he would “rather be streaming right now rather than playing this game or trading stocks.”
Meanwhile, Praggnanandhaa’s visit to the confessional booth ended in him realising he had missed a critical move.
“It has gone a bit badly for me today,” the Indian admitted.
The teenager was explaining why his opponent couldn’t play 25.Nxd6 before breaking down the consequent line. While speaking, he stumbled upon the move 28.Rf1!
“Now that I see, there’s Re2 and Rf1. I hope to create some counterplay here, but I think that white should be better,” he said before walking out.
In the women’s section, Vaishali got her second win on the bounce to safely go into the first rest day as the leader.
Carlsen gets slice of luck
After Pragg had handed Carlsen a defeat in Round 3, Caruana could have moved to within four rating points of Carlsen if he could manage to defeat the World no 1, who has held that spot for over a decade now.
Carlsen himself admitted after the game that the world no 1 position was on his mind.
“Going into today, I thought, let’s try to get away with a draw and still be ranked No 1 in the world and try to get the tournament going after the free day… as the game went along, my appetite grew as well,” the Norwegian World no 1 said on the Chess dot com broadcast.
During his first visit to the confessional booth, Nakamura had set the tone nicely for the Carlsen vs Caruana game.
“If we look at this game in the context of chess history, I think it’s a very critical game. I’m not an odds-maker of anything, but if Magnus loses today, there’s at least a 30 percent chance that Caruana gets red-hot and overtake Magnus to become No 1 in the world. Very critical game in the context of chess history. You don’t generally have games that have such importance like this,” Nakamura said.
LIMITED USED IMAGE of Magnus Carlsen at the Norway Chess 2024 tournament in Stavanger. (Photo via Norway Chess / Stev Bonhage to be used only during Norway Chess 2024).
However Carlsen’s position as the world no 1 is not under any imminent threat after he survived and claimed victory over Caruana. The American World no 2 was himself responsible for the defeat, after blundering a move at the end by shifting his king to h2. The computer later showed that he could have managed to get a better result simply by leaving the king alone and instead bringing back the queen to a2.
Thanks to the defeat, the difference between Carlsen and Caruana on the points table is 23.6 points. It must be noted that Carlsen has now stayed on top of the monthly published ratings for 150 consecutive months.
Ding’s reign looking shaky
In the third game of the open section, Ding Liren was handed a resounding defeat by Alireza Firouzja to make things worse for the reigning world champion. Before the tournament started, Ding had told The Indian Express that his hope was not to finish last at the Norway Chess event.
This is now the second game Ding has lost in a row after the Chinese world champ had tasted defeat in Round 3. Thanks to the two losses, Ding is now the second ranked player from China after Wei Yi in the ratings list.
His loss evoked even pity from his opponent Alireza who told Chess dot come after the game: “Normally I should be happy after a win. but of course, clearly he is not playing his best. I hope he finds his shape because I didn’t do anything particular in the game today, it was just about him not finding accurate moves.”
Round five starts on Saturday, June 1 with Friday being the first of two rest days at the Norway Chess tournament.
