R Praggnanandhaa achieved an impressive victory against D Gukesh in a thrilling tie-breaker at the Tata Chess Masters in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. This was a surprising turn of events for Gukesh, who is currently India’s top chess player and was leading the tournament. However, his performance dipped towards the end, allowing Praggnanandhaa to catch up, which led to the tie-breaker.
Arjun Erigaisi caused a stir in the tournament by defeating strong player Nodirbek Abdusattorov in the earlier round, ending his own 24-game winless streak. He continued his great form by beating Gukesh as well. Meanwhile, Vincent Keymer, who helped Gukesh during his World Championship win, managed to defeat Praggnanandhaa earlier, giving Gukesh a chance, but Gukesh struggled in the tie-breaks, showing his weakness in that area.
After beating Gukesh, Arjun was really happy and said his confidence had returned. He had a tough start in the tournament, which made him lose his top spot to Gukesh. “Yes, definitely. After yesterday’s win, I felt pretty confident today. I was very under-confident until yesterday,” he said.
Talking about his performance, he shared, “In my first game, I should have traded queens and gone for a draw. But I made a bad decision.” His match against Gukesh was quite one-sided, with Arjun winning the game with an amazing 98.8% accuracy. He struggled for the first 11 rounds, losing four times and drawing seven, but then he suddenly found his rhythm and beat the top players in the last two rounds.
According to live rankings, Arjun is now World No. 5 and India No. 2 with a rating of 2776.7. Although he ended 2023 as India’s top player, his earlier poor performance caused him to lose that title to Gukesh
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