Chess: Erdogmus, 14 , Wins ‘immortal’ Game On Silk Road As Grand Swiss Nears Climax

There were 2 caller frontrunners connected Thursday astatine nan $625,000 Grand Swiss successful Samarkand connected nan ancient Silk Road, aft Iran’s Parham Maghsoodloo, who had led for nan first six rounds, was beaten. The apical 2 finishers aft 11 rounds will suffice for nan 2026 Candidates and a imaginable title changeable astatine nan shaky crown of nan world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju.

Leaders aft information 7 were Nihal Sarin (India) and Matthias Blübaum (Germany) 5.5, Maghsoodloo (Iran), Abhimanyu Mishra and Hans Niemann (US), Anish Giri (Netherlands), Alireza Firouzja (France), Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan) and Vidit Gujrathi (India) 5.

Sarin, 21, and Blübaum, 28, were seeded only Nos 20 and 32 astatine nan start. They will beryllium paired together successful Friday’s eighth round, but tin expect a unsmooth thrust successful nan last 3 rounds arsenic nan favourites make their bids for nan Candidates.

3989: Vladimir Shulman v Vladimir Feldman, Riga Open 1986. White to move and win.

This tourney will beryllium remembered for 2 historical teenage achievements. Mishra, who is already a world grounds holder arsenic nan youngest ever grandmaster, astatine 12 years 4 months, group different landmark when, aged 16 years 7 months, he defeated Gukesh successful information 5 to go nan youngest subordinate ever to triumph against a reigning world champion, breaking nan grounds group 33 years earlier by Gata Kamsky of nan US, past 17 years 10 months, against Garry Kasparov astatine Dortmund 1992.

Mishra was humble astir nan game: “Even though I won, it doesn’t consciousness pleasing, because I had a winning position but conscionable threw it away. Later he made immoderate mistakes and I sewage it back, but wide it wasn’t a very cleanable game.”

The 2nd historical crippled was successful information four, erstwhile Turkey’s Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus overwhelmed India’s Mittal Aditya by a barrage of brilliancies. The “Turkish Immortal” allowed 2 achromatic queens connected nan board, past sacrificed nan achromatic queen for a pawn, followed by checkmate by a antecedently unmoved achromatic pawn. It was moreover much superb than Bobby Fischer’s 1956 “Game of nan Century” against Donald Byrne.

Aditya v Erdogmus is fixed present twice: first pinch the bare moves, past pinch nan Chessbase India video of nan crippled arsenic it really happened, pinch nan moves sped up arsenic if they were playing blitz. Magnus Carlsen, commenting connected Take Take Take, paid Erdogmus a immense compliment: “Erdogmus is really, really good, astatine almost unprecedented levels astatine that age.”

The young Turk impressed again pinch a difficult defence against Abdusattorov, who tried for 8 hours and 190 moves to triumph pinch queen and rook pawn against queen, but successful Thursday’s information 7 Erdogmus was good beaten by Hans Niemann, making a precocious move towards nan leaders.

Meanwhile, Gukesh mislaid again, this clip against nan little-known Greek GM Nikolas Theodorou. Trying to regain crushed successful nan tournament, Gukesh overpressed and past had a declare for a tie by threefold repetition of position rejected by nan arbiter, who added 2 minutes to Theodorou’s timepiece arsenic a penalty.

It sewage worse for Gukesh successful information 7 when, aft reaching a won position against Turkey’s different young prima Ediz Gurel, 16, he blundered into defeat. Gukesh now has a minus people aft 3 losses successful a row, while Gurel becomes nan all-time 2nd youngest subordinate aft Mishra to hit a reigning world champion.

Overall successful nan Grand Swiss, nan mini group of elite GMs who monopolise invitations to valuable all-play-all tournaments person grounded truthful acold to show immoderate clear superiority to little classed opponents. There could beryllium a connection present for nan St Louis-backed Grand Chess Tour and nan Freestyle Grand Slam.

Unlike nan Open, nan $230,000 Women’s Grand Swiss has been dominated by 2 of nan apical seeds: Vaishali Rameshbabu, who won it successful 2023, and Kateryna Lagno, a accordant performer successful awesome events. Vaishali took a clear lead successful information 7 erstwhile she overwhelmed her Chinese opponent pinch a classical onslaught by queen, knight and pawns connected a castled king.

Women’s Grand Prix leaders aft 7 of nan 11 rounds were Vaishali (India) 6, Lagno (Russia) 5.5, Antoaneta Stefanova (Bulgaria), Bibisara Assaubayeva (Kazakhstan), Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine), and Yuxin Song (China) 5.

3989 1 Qd5+! Nxd5 2 Bg4+! Ke5 3 Rf5+! Kd4 (if Ke6 4 exd5 mate) 4 Rxd5+ Kc4 5 Be2+ Kb4 6 a3 mate.