11th Norway Chess 2023 R4: Gukesh draws Classical against Carlsen

Four games of Round 4 required Armageddon. Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov defeated D Gukesh, Anish Giri and Nodirbek Abdusattorov in Armageddon deciders, while Wesley So drew against Aryan Tari with the black pieces, winning his match. Here is five hours of full live commentary by ChessBase India:

The interactive commentary is provided by Amruta Mokal, who is naturally quite passionate in her coverage of the Gukesh-Carlsen game. Here's an example from the Armageddon game – watch her coverage of the rest of the very dangerous endgame for an impression of truly animated live chess commentary! 

Gukesh - Carlsen: 1-1.5

D Gukesh (2732) has played only one Classical rated game against Magnus Carlsen (NOR, 2853). It was earlier this year at the 85th Tata Steel Masters 2023 and ended in a draw. This time also the result was same. The game was far from easy. Gukesh had a clear advantage in the middlegame, after which a queen endgame after the 30th move it lasted for another 52 moves of fight, where the players tried to one up each other.

This is the engine evaluation during the game: White was clearly better until move 25, then Carlsen took over and started to press, while Gukesh defended very well for a draw. The intensely fought queen ending lasted more than 50% of the entire game.

Note that in the game below you can click (or tap) on the notation to get a replay board, which you can resize and replace, with full engine access (fan button)  

It’s a draw!! Gukesh and Carlsen move to the Armageddon ♟️ #NorwayChess pic.twitter.com/11Gc50pgkh

— Norway Chess (@NorwayChess) June 3, 2023

The Armageddon was a chaotic encounter which saw Gukesh sacrificing his queen in a must-win game.

Guess what Gukesh did. He did sacrifice his queen! 27.Qxa2 Qxa2 28.Nxd7 Rd8 29.Nf6+ Kf7 30.e5 Qd2 31.f3 Qxb4 and Black eventually went on to win the game after Gukesh blundered his knight (full game in the replay board below). Nevertheless, it was a thrilling encounter and Gukesh played really well. Once again he showed that he is ready to take Carlsen in any format of the game.

Gukesh played fantastic chess against Magnus Carlsen in both Classical and Armaegeddon

Firouzja - Caruana: 0-1

The last encounter between Alireza Firouzja (FRA, 2785) and Fabiano Caruana (USA, 2764) ended in a draw at Superbet Chess Classic last month. Here is the critical position in their round four Norway Chess game:

With 22...Rb2 Caruana taunted White into capturing the h8-rook via Qa8+ skewer. Firouzja fell for it. 23.Bd2 Rg8 24.Rf1 would have kept White in the game. 23.Qa8+ Kf7 24.Qxh8 Qxc2 25.Bd2 Qe4+ 26.Kf1 Qd3+ and Black went on to win the game by munching a lot of pawns. Full game in the replay board below.

Fabiano Caruana is ´clearly in a great form

On rest day, 11th Norway Chess 2023 participants had a knitting competition. The players were divided to five teams, and had to design knittable sweaters! 

The winning design was submitted by the team of Anish Giri and Nodirbek Abdusattorov. You can watch the action in a video on the Norway Chess Twitter page.

Here are all the games of Round 4 with automatic ChessBase engine-generated commentary:

Link: Tournament page of Norway Chess