Bengaluru: World No.1 Magnus Carlsen avenged his opening round classical defeat against Alireza Firouzja with a win with White in Round 6 of Norway Chess on Sunday. Indian players had a rough day in the tournament with all four of them – reigning world champion Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Divya Deshmukh and Koneru Humpy suffering losses. Humpy was the only Indian who lost in the Armageddon, while the rest went down in their classical encounters.
When asked about his ambitions before the round on a scale of 1-10, Carlsen rated it a low 1.5. In the confessional he described his response to Firouzja’s opening surprise as a “proper old-guy move,” taking the game into a position that was in vogue before the 22-year-old Iranian-French Grandmaster started playing chess and also spoke of preparing the key Ne5 Be6 line for his 2016 World Championship match against Sergey Karjakin. Firouzja, went on to find himself a pawn down, struggling to hold and eventually it was too much of a task.
It was a sad day for Indian players, with Praggnanandhaa losing his second consecutive classical game to find himself at the bottom of the standings with six points. Wesley So moved into the lead with 11.5 points after his win over Praggnanandhaa. Carlsen is four points behind the leader. Keymer, playing with the White pieces, was a pawn up against Gukesh. He spoke of getting chances because Gukesh “puts his pieces in weird squares just to do something forcing.”
In the women’s section, reigning world champion Ju Wenjun tried to revive her run in the tournament with a classical win over India’s Divya Deshukh – who is placed second in the standings, a point behind leader Bibisara Assaubayeva.
