By Jonathan Manley
High drama in Stavanger as the favorites crash in round 9.
World no.1 Magnus Carlsen made one of the worst moves of his career in the speed tiebreak with Wei Yi: a one-move error losing piece. ‘An unthinkable blunder and a dagger for Carlsen’s tournament hopes,’ said David Howell commentating at Chess.com.
Gukesh has had a charmed tournament. ‘A firefighter in a burning building who somehow finds the only escape route,’ was Tania Sachdev’s vivid description.
In game after game poor strategic decisions have left him defending desperate positions. Even his huge reserves of courage and ingenuity could not save the one against Nakamura.
As the seriousness of his mistake at move 20 sank in, Gukesh went into the tank. Nakamura went into the confessional booth to tell viewers what he had cooked up: ‘Maybe we’ll have some fun, but we’ll see.’
Soon the clock was as good an indicator of Gukesh’s plight as the evaluation bar. He fell more than an hour behind and his king was gradually consumed in the inferno.
It was Arjun Erigaisi’s turn to have his share of luck after yesterday’s mishap against Gukesh. Outplayed by Caruana, the tournament leader, he set up some time-trouble tricks to upset the applecart for an unlikely win, thereby overtaking Caruana in the world rankings.
Caruana still leads but will face Carlsen in the penultimate round on Thursday.
In the women’s event, Humpy Koneru regained her lead with a smooth positional win over Sara Khadem. Vaishali Rameshbabu made a fine comeback, defeating Women’s World Champion Ju Wenjun in the tiebreak.
Anything could happen to the leaderboards in the final two rounds.