Continuing his sublime form, D. Gukesh nailed last-man Aryan Tari in their classical game of the eighth round in Norway Chess in Stavanger and moved to a career-high live world ranking of 13 on Thursday.
Playing with white pieces, Gukesh dealt with some worrying moments but soon established two advanced connected pawns on a crowded board and eventually won in style in 37 moves.
Gukesh (13 points), the only winner of a classical game on this day, moved to the third place behind leader Fabiano Caruana (16) and Hikaru Nakamura (13.5). Since these two members of the American team face off in the final round, Gukesh is out of the title-race.
On the brighter side, the 17-year-old took his live rating to 2743.7 that raised him to the 13th spot. Interestingly, the victory over Tari was worth 3.8 rating points and took Gukesh past illustrious names like Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2742), Levon Aronian (2742) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2741.8). He faces World No. 8 Wesley So in the final round.
Caruana, Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri won their Armageddon games, but the surprise winner was teenager Nodirbek Abdusattorov who upstaged Nakamura.
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