GM Vishy Anand the early leader of the SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz Croatia 2023
Author: Maria Fragaki
Day one of the SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz Croatia 2023 kicked off yesterday, featuring among others Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Fabiano Caruana, and Gukesh D. After the first 3 Rapid Rounds, Anand emerged as the early leader with Rapport, Duda and Carlsen closely following.
The 53-year-old chess legend GM Viswanathan Anand “shows how it’s done” as @agadmator tweeted, after finishing day 1 of the SuperUnited Rapid in Zagreb at the top of the scoring board with 5 points. Anand beat GMs Richard Rapport and Constantin Lupulescu and drew against the young prodigy GM Alireza Firouzja in game 1, showing his great form and resilience.
GMs Magnus Carlsen, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, and Richard Rapport tied for second with 4 points after a win and two draws each.
An interesting moment of day 1 was when Garry Kasparov said: “It’s the first big tournament where one of the participants, in this case Gukesh D, was born after I retired from chess!” And indeed, the Indian chess prodigy is one of the youngest participants in such big tournaments with Carlsen also mentioning after their game:
“He’s so young. I think his play, especially in faster time controls, is going to go up and down. Right now, he’s struggling, but I’m sure he will strike back quickly as his general understanding of the game is very good.”
