Praggnanandhaa beats Gukesh, in race for Norway Chess title

Magnus Carlsen and D Gukesh have had a rough tournament in Oslo and are at ten and eight points respectively after the penultimate round. They will face each other in Round 10 that will decide who finishes at the bottom.

In Round 9, R Praggnanandhaa, playing Black, found his third classical win in a row – this time against Gukesh. His earlier wins came against Alireza Firouzja and Carlsen. On Thursday, the Gukesh-Praggnanandhaa game followed the one between Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Wei Yi from the 2025 Tata Steel Chess for the first 14 moves.

Praggnanandhaa improvised with an f5 novelty on move 13 to which Gukesh responded with a losing move – 14.g4, exposing his rook. Though the 20-year-old world champion fought back, opening up the centre, it wasn’t long before White, a piece down, fell apart. Praggnanandhaa kept finding the only moves to bring up victory.