India’s Vidit Gujrathi in Round 2 of the Candidates, beats world No. 3 and tournament favourite Hikaru Nakamura with the Black pieces. It brought the American GM’s 47-classical-game unbeaten streak to an end. The last time Hikaru lost a classical game was back in the 2022 Candidates tournament, against current reigning world champion Ding Liren. This also marks Vidit’s first-ever win against Hikaru in classical chess.
In contrast to the all-draw affair of the opening round, all games in the Open section on Day turned out to be decisive. In addition to Vidit, D Gukesh, Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi too won their respective games.
Vidit arrived at the board brimming with ideas. He baited Hikaru early by giving up a pawn only to land a blow with 11…Bxh3. A wonderful idea from Vidit, exploiting White’s lack of development on the queenside – with the rock, knight and bishop still languishing on their starting squares. The Indian was clearly in his preparation and Hikaru, who hadn’t seen this covert plan coming, appeared shaken. The American seemed annoyed at being the player who had to think longer on every move, while his opponent who’d seemingly out-prepared him, got to blitz out from the start and trap him with a dynamite idea. Hikaru went for 12. Nc4 pretty quickly after the Bxh3 shocker. “This will come back to haunt him,” Viswanathan Anand sighed on the commentary. The five-time world champion’s words would turn out to be prophetic.
