Picture Credit: Twitter
Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh beat the former World Blitz champion Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan in the final on April 9. In the double-elimination event, Gukesh lost the first game 1.5-0.5, but the 16-year-old came back, beating his compatriot by the exact same score in the second game.
The first game of the 'new' match was a draw after a perpetual check from Gukesh . The young Indian GM strangled the Uzbek on time in the last game and Nodirbek made mistakes which the Indian grabbed onto.
Nodirbek Abdusattorov lost to D Gukesh 1-2 in Match 7 on Day 4 of the championship. The teenaged Grandmaster then beat the 14th world champion in history, Vladimir Kramnik 2-1. The U zbek Grandmaster beat Vladimir Kramnik on his way to the finals. In Game 1 Kramnik suffered for a while but managed to neutralize the game to end in a draw. In Game 2, the young Uzbek GM suddenly stopped the clock and called the International Arbiter Tania Karali. Abdusattorov had spotted a well-hidden threefold repetition, for him to survive a lost position against Kramnik and force Armageddon.
It was an intense game in which Kramnik lost control, lost the game, got eliminated, and was disappointed, with the Uzbek getting promoted to the final match against D Gukesh. The Indian beat the Uzbek in the finals and won the 18000 Euros while Nodirbek won 8000 Euros. Both are guaranteed a spot in Armageddon's Grand Finale, scheduled for September 2023.
Daniil Dubov, Yu Yangyi, Vladimir Kramnik, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Vidit Gujrathi, Parham Maghsoodloo, Gukesh D, and Murali Karthikeyan will play a double-elimination blitz knockout, as they battle for 50,000 Euros in this tournament.
Former world champion Viswanathan Anand also heaped praise on the youngster. “An excellent achievement especially in a different time control,” he said in the tweet.
