Gukesh sacrifices his queen against Magnus Carlsen in Round 4 of Norway Chess
In Round 4 of Norway Chess the young Indian prodigy, Gukesh Dommaraju, drew his classical game against the former World Champion, Magnus Carlsen, and lost an epic Armageddon game afterwards where he sacrificed his queen. Fabiano Caruana beat Alireza Firouzja – the only decisive game of the day – to remain the sole leader of the tournament with 10.5 points and climb again to World No.2, since October 2021.
The most anticipated game of the day, Gukesh vs Carlsen, World No.1 tried to get Gukesh out of preparation in order to get in a long strategical position despite being slightly worse.
The game soon went to a queens’ endgame where Magnus managed to put a lot of pressure on the queenside, but the game ended in 82 moves with a perpetual check. Next up was Armageddon where Gukesh had a “win or lose” approach! He first gave an exchange and then sacrificed his queen in exchange for a bishop, a knight, and two passed pawns! It was truly amazing, but Magnus played resourcefully and defeated Gukesh to win an extra half a point.
Another anticipated game was the one between the tournament’s top seeds, Fabiano Caruana and Alireza Firouzja. “It was a very strange game. I surprised him in the opening, for sure. I don’t play this line, I don’t play the French too much, in fact, and he played a very dangerous line, but not one where I really remembered the details.” Caruana commented on the opening.
It was very early in the game when Stockfish was way too much in favor of Black (-1.69 on move 19), an advantage that Caruana kept to eventually win the game. This win not only put the American GM on the top of the tournament’s standings board with 10.5 points (+4 from the second), but also on World No.2 rank since October 2021!
The other three games of the day went to the Armageddon with Nakamura, So, and Mamedyarov taking an extra half point against Giri, Tari, and Abdusattorov respectively.
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