Grand Chess Tour: Anand settles for tied 7th

Young Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh finished fifth while his illustrious compatriot Viswanathan Anand could only manage a tied seventh place in the third leg of the 2023 Super United Rapid and Blitz chess tournament. Gukesh, who had a moderate performance on day 1 of the Blitz segment, bounced back well on the second day to pick up 6.5 points which included wins over Anand and top players like Fabiano Caruana (USA) and Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland). Gukesh, who beat Anand for the first time ever in tournament play in the Rapid segment, got the better of the five-time world champion in 34 moves in the blitz on Sunday. The 17-year old Indian star began the second day of the Blitz section with a win over Richard Rapport (Romania) and then stunned the highly-rated Caruana. After going down to world No.1 Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Gukesh turned the tables on Anand. A defeat to Alireza Firouzja was followed by three straight wins – over Constantin Lupulescu (Romania), Duda and Ivan Saric (Croatia). He ended the tournament with a draw against Ian Nepomniachtchi and a score of 19.5 points (Rapid + blitz). Anand, who had started the tourney in style in the Rapid segment, had to endure a poor run, scoring only three points on day one of the Blitz and then logged 3.5 points on the second day. The veteran Indian ended with 16.5 points.