STAVANGER: Magnus Carlsen is the Norway Chess champion for a seventh time after D Gukesh made a big blunder at the end of his game against Fabiano Caruana. On a day of high drama, Carlsen and Gukesh, separated by 0.5 points before the last and final round on Friday, were under pressure for large parts of their respective games against Arjun Erigaisi and Caruana respectively.
Gukesh knew he could ill-afford a loss as he was trailing. So, he soldiered on, even in an almost lost position. But he knew he could win the tournament because Erigaisi had put the World No 1 under tremendous pressure for over three hours and change.
But once Erigaisi made small inaccuracies, the Norwegian suddenly engineered big counter play chances for himself. When he had the one winning move stating at him in the endgame, he didn't find it. The eval bar restored parity and they repeated their moves three times, signalling a draw.
The 34-year-old, who has time and again said that he finds Classical chess a chore, would have likely pushed on for a win if the Indian world champion, Gukesh, was not in a terrible position. But moments after Carlsen and Erigaisi called truce, Caruana blundered and Gukesh had chances of winning the tournament.
But under severe time pressure and having defended so resolutely for so long, he jumped at the chance of queening his d pawn rather than holding on to his position.
Once he queened, the US player pressed his knight into service to set up a deadly fork. It was game over. The 19-year-old knew the game was up and seconds left on the clock. The defeat in Classical also means that Gukesh will finish third in the standings, a mixed bag of a tournament.