D Gukesh leaves opponent shocked, Uzbek GM storms off in anger, makes epic comeback in Freestyle Chess Grand Slam

Gukesh, who’s the reigning World Chess Champion, was at a weak place in direction of the tip, however managed to stage a draw, with Nodirbek having two Knights and a King remaining. In the meantime, Gukesh solely had a King left. The India No. 1 was all the way down to the final minute on the clock whereas Nodirbek had practically 4 minutes in his time steadiness, and each gamers had performed out 50 strikes up to now halfway by the sport.

It ended up being a hard-fought 96-move draw for Gukesh.

Right here is the video of D Gukesh leaving his opponent shocked:

However he failed to duplicate related success within the subsequent spherical, as he crashed to a defeat to Alireza Firouzja in solely 27 strikes. Firouzja responded properly to Gukesh’s Rd8+ in transfer 20 by taking his Knight between the white Rook and his King together with eight rank. Then seven strikes afterwards, he secured the win by shifting his Queen to d1 after Gukesh went for Qe3.

Gukesh’s presence on the Chess960 event additionally comes with controversy. The FIDE lately launched a press release the place it denied official recognition to a Freestyle Chess World Championship, in an enormous setback to FCPC. The controversy was additional fuelled by the sudden withdrawal of Viswanathan Anand, who had initially accepted a wildcard. Anand’s withdrawal got here amid the controversy and after Magnus Carlsen’s criticism of the India legend.

Regardless of taking part within the event, Gukesh has already made his emotions recognized about classical and freestyle chess. Chatting with ChessBase India, he stated, “I believe 960 is sweet as an experiment, however I do not see it taking on classical chess. The Classical World Chess Championship cycle can be rather more essential than 960, so I’m glad to experiment with the 960.”