Superbet Classic Round 1: Gukesh begins with a win

GM Gukesh D won his 1st round match of the Superbet Classic, part of the Grand Chess Tour against the local lad Bogdan-Daniel Deac.

The World Championship Challenger didn’t disappoint his fans on his return to Classical Chess after the win at the Candidates 2024.

The game lasted around five-hours and began with Nimzo-Indian Defense, which is said to be the number-one openings when defending.

But this time, Gukesh was with the white pieces and was blitzing out his moves till the 22nd move of the game.

The Indian maestro took about 30 minutes to play his 23rd move which appeared to hand the advantage to his opponent. Bogdan-Daniel, however, did not take advantage of this.

The game continued and both players were low on time, pressing the clock just seconds before the time turned zero.

However, Gukesh kept his nerve gaining a material advantage and winning the match comprehensively. 

Draw for Pragg

Meanwhile, Praggnanandhaa drew his game against Nodirbek Abdusattarov of Uzbekistan.

The Indian held the game comfortably with the black pieces, never giving the Uzbek a chance to mount an attack and exchanging pieces in hindsight.

The game ended with a three-fold repetition by the players, resulting in a draw.

In the other Games, Anish Giri drew against Wesley So, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave drew against Ian Nepomniachtchi.

The top-seed of the tournament Fabiano Caruana(Fabi) defeated Alireja Firouza with the black pieces, following a blunder by Firouza.

Fabiano is now just 0.3 shy from the 2800 mark in the live ratings. At his peak, He had reached the career-highest rating of 2844 in 2014.

Round 2 Pairings 

• Praggnanandhaa v/s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
  
• Ian Nepomniachtchi v/s Gukesh D
• Fabiano Caruana v/s Wesley So
• Alireza Firouza v/s Nodirbek Abdusattarov
• Bogdan-Daniel v/s Anish Giri.