D. Gukesh joined overnight leader Pentala Harikrishna at the top spot after registering his first win against Serbia’s Alexandr Predke in the fourth round of the Chennai Grand Masters 2023 on Monday at the Leela Palace in Chennai.
First-seeded Iranian Parham Maghsoodloo also managed to get his first win against another overnight leader, Hungary’s Sanan Sjugirov, and significantly improved his Candidates chances through rating spot after his direct competitor, USA’s Leinier Dominguez Perez, backed out of his qualifying tournament.
Harikrishna kept the experienced Levon Aronian at bay and forced a draw, while Arjun Erigaisi’s middle-game press proved insufficient to defeat Pavel Eljanov.
Gukesh and Predke pursued the Sicilian opening. Predke made a tactical move to create an imbalance in the position by sacking his pawn in the opening.
His 20th move, knight to f4, proved to be a positional blunder, but Gukesh ignored it and played bishop to d2, allowing him to recapture his pawn with a check on the ‘a’ file.
Predke was unable to maintain the tempo, and his poor counterplay in the second half cost him points as his accuracy fell below 80.2 compared to Gukesh’s 92.4.
Gukesh forced errors from Predke and the Serbian resigned on the 44th move, which took the 17-year-old to 2720.5 in the live rating and World No. 27 in the live rankings.
In the other decisive game, Maghsoodloo, playing with white in the Queen’s Gambit Declined game, made a comeback in the world’s top 15 after catching Sjugirov in his opening.
Sjugirov’s seventh move cost him 27 minutes. By the 17th move, he already had consumed one hour and 10 minutes while also giving a massive positional advantage with an edge in the clock, as the Iranian had over an hour in hand with a favourable position to play.
Maghsoodloo made easy work of Sjugirov’s defence to wrap the game by the 34th move, forcing his opponent to resign.
“I was caught in my preparations,” said Sjugirov after the loss. “It was just an unlucky day, but Parham played really well.”
In an English game, Arjun’s precise play was matched by Eljanov’s equally fought defence, as both players now sit with two points after four rounds.
Harikrishna, this time with black, was engaged in a Ruy Lopez game a second time in a row and managed to squeeze out a draw against Aronian.
Having isolated pawns at ‘a’ and ‘c’ files against Aronian’s consolidated two pawn islands structure seemed a slightly complex position for the Indian, but the endgame master’s accurate play compelled Aronian to repeat moves.
“It appeared to be a promising position for me, and I believe I was putting some pressure, and then I did not play the most practical moves. Perhaps, I became too greedy... grabbing the pawn was not a good idea,” said Aronian while going through his game.
“In the opening, I was a little too passive, and white had a really nice position. King f2 would have given Levon more chances...whether he was winning or how big that advantage was, I’m not sure, but based on what happened in the game, I believe it was a draw,” said Harikrishna.
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