Arjun Erigaisi, Gukesh and P. Harikrishna pose with their spoils after the top of the Chennai Grand Masters Chess Championship on Thursday, December 21, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
D. Gukesh drew with P. Harikrishna within the seventh and last spherical and received the Chennai Grand Masters Chess Championship on tie-break at The Leela Palace resort right here on Thursday.
Gukesh completed joint-first with Arjun Erigaisi, who beat Hungary’s Sanan Sjugirov. The Sonneborn-Berger rating was employed because the tie-break and Gukesh (13.75) edged Arjun (13.50) to the title.
Gukesh has surpassed Anish Giri within the FIDE Circuit leaderboard and has thus grow to be the frontrunner for the FIDE Circuit Candidates spot.
Anish wants to complete within the top-three within the World Rapid or win the World Blitz, and Arjun has to win the World Rapid to overhaul Gukesh and safe the FIDE Circuit Candidates spot.
Gukesh mentioned he had determined to play protected after securing back-to-back wins over Alexandr Predke (Serbia) and Sjugirov within the fourth and fifth rounds.
“The last couple of rounds, I was in safe mode. I knew that tied for first would be enough for (topping) the (FIDE) Circuit. Two wins were quite nice, and I was like, ‘Now, I should just not do anything stupid and just play it safe.’ So, yes, honestly, I was just playing for a draw in the last two games,” he mentioned on the commentary.
“When you are fighting in every game, accidents can happen. It’s not that I’m scared of it, but the stakes were just too high, and I didn’t want to take any chances,” he added.
The outcomes (seventh spherical): P. Harikrishna (4) drew with D. Gukesh (4.5); Arjun Erigaisi bt Sanan Sjugirov (Hun, 2.5); Alexandr Predke (Srb, 1.5) misplaced to Parham Maghsoodloo (Irn, 3.5); Pavel Eljanov (Ukr, 4) drew with Levon Aronian (USA, 3.5).
