World no 1 Magnus Carlsen defeated world champion Gukesh Dommaraju in both their games on day 2 of the Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown exhibition event before defeating Hikaru Nakamura twice and losing his games to Fabiano Caruana to surge into top spot in the four-player event. Gukesh, who was on top of the standings after day 1, slumped to last spot after winning no games on day 2.
The format of the three-day tournament means that players earned one point for a win on day 1, two points for wins on day 2 and will earn three points for any victory on the final day, which means that the door is still open for Gukesh to win the whole event with a decent performance on the final day.
Gukesh had three draws and three defeats on the second day of the event.
“It was better than yesterday, but I mean I would like to have a little bit more control in my games than I did today, but you know, I’ll take the result of course. I can only be happy that I managed to swindle a couple of other wins,” Carlsen told the St Louis Chess Club’s YouTube page after the second day ended. Carlsen called his victory over Gukesh in the first game of Day 2 of the event as the “only good game that I played in this tournament”.
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WATCH: Magnus Carlsen speaks on his wins over Gukesh
Caruana shot out from the bottom of the standings with one of the best performances of the day. Even Carlsen admitted that his twin victories over him were well deserved.
“Fabi (Caruana) could’ve beaten me twice yesterday and he very deservedly beat me twice today, so I cannot complain about that much. I can only be happy that I managed to swindle a couple of other wins,” Carlsen said.
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