Draws dominated on Friday in round eight of the $625,000 Grand Swiss in Samarkand on the ancient Silk Road, where the top two finishers after 11 rounds will qualify for the 2026 Candidates and a potential title shot at the shaky crown of the world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju.
Leaders after round eight were Nihal Sarin (India) and Matthias Blübaum (Germany) 6, Parham Maghsoodloo (Iran), Abhimanyu Mishra and Hans Niemann (US), Anish Giri and Jorden van Foreest (Netherlands), Alireza Firouzja (France), Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan) and Vincent Keymer (Germany) all 5.5.
Sarin, 21, and Blübaum, 28, were seeded only Nos 20 and 32 at the start, and can expect a rough ride in the final three rounds as higher seeds make their push for the Candidates.
This tournament will be remembered for two historic teenage achievements. Mishra, who is already a world record-holder as the youngest ever grandmaster, at 12 years four months, set another landmark when, aged 16 years seven months, he defeated Gukesh in round five to become the youngest player to win against a reigning world champion, breaking the record set 33 years earlier by Gata Kamsky of the US, then 17 years 10 months, against Garry Kasparov at Dortmund 1992.
Mishra was modest about the game: “Even though I won, it doesn’t feel pleasing, because I had a winning position but just threw it away. Later he made some mistakes and I got it back, but overall it wasn’t a very clean game.”
The second historic game was in round four, when Turkey’s Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus overwhelmed India’s Mittal Aditya by a barrage of brilliancies. The “Turkish Immortal” allowed two white queens on the board, then sacrificed the black queen for a pawn, followed by checkmate by a previously unmoved black pawn. It was even more brilliant than Bobby Fischer’s 1956 “Game of the Century” against Donald Byrne.
Aditya v Erdogmus is given here twice: first with the bare moves, then with the Chessbase India video of the game as it actually happened, with the moves sped up as if they were playing blitz. Magnus Carlsen, commenting on Take Take Take, paid Erdogmus a huge compliment: “Erdogmus is really, really good, at almost unprecedented levels at that age.”
The young Turk impressed again with a difficult defence against Abdusattorov, who tried for eight hours and 190 moves to win with queen and rook pawn against queen. In round seven Erdogmus was well beaten by Niemann, but in round eight he defeated the US star Levon Aronian to advance to five points, with an outside chance of qualifying.
Meanwhile, India’s Gukesh, who is competing at Samarkand hors de concours, continues to have a truly disastrous tournament. Following his round five age record loss to Mishra, Gukesh was beaten in round six by the little-known Greek GM Nikolas Theodorou, after the champion’s claim for a draw by threefold repetition was rejected by the arbiter.
In round seven, Gukesh lost for the third time in a row, as Turkey’s other teenage star Ediz Gurel, 16, became the second youngest after Mishra to defeat a reigning world champion.
In Friday’s round eight, Gukesh was paired with India’s 19-year-old Deshmukh Divya, who is already qualified for the women’s Candidates so chose to play in the open section. Again Gukesh stood worse, but Divya was satisfied to draw and equal the record result for a woman against a reigning world champion, while Gukesh has now dropped out of the world top 10.
Overall in the Grand Swiss, the small group of elite GMs who monopolise invitations to valuable all-play-all tournaments have failed so far to demonstrate any clear superiority to lower ranked opponents. There could be a message here for the St Louis-backed Grand Chess Tour and the Freestyle Grand Slam.
Vaishali Rameshbabu, who had headed the field from the start, lost to Kazakhstan’s Bibisara Assaubayeva in round eight of the Women’s Grand Swiss, and Kateryna Lagno became the new leader by defeating Mariya Muzychuk. In round seven, Vaishali overwhelmed her Chinese opponent with a classic attack by queen, knight and pawns on a castled king.
Women’s Grand Swiss leaders after eight of the 11 rounds were Lagno (Fide/Russia) 6.5, Assaubayeva (Kazakhstan), Vaishali (India) and Yuxin Song (China) 6, Irina Krush (US), Antoaneta Stefanova (Bulgaria), Olga Girya (Fide/Russia), Qi Guo (China) and Muzychuk (Ukraine) all 5.
3989 1 Qd5+! Nxd5 2 Bg4+! Ke5 3 Rf5+! Kd4 (if Ke6 4 exd5 mate) 4 Rxd5+ Kc4 5 Be2+ Kb4 6 a3 mate.
