Even as he was leaving the building, the World No. 1 succinctly summed up the game. “He sometimes plays too ambitiously and I think he did that (today),” he said. “He kind of wanted to prove serious advantage and I’m not sure there was. And, eventually, he played himself into some trouble. I took over more and more. Right at the end, I was a little bit worried because I’m allowing him to take a knight with check and I’m thinking this happened against Pragg (R Praggnanandhaa) yesterday (Wednesday), this happened against Gukesh last year… am I actually missing something? (But) if I was, he didn’t find it.”
While questions will continue to be asked about Gukesh’s form — it’s still early days in Oslo but it doesn’t help that he’s bottom with zero wins in the Classical section after four rounds — this game had everything. It showed that while Gukesh is far from his best at the moment, he will still opt for being combative at all times irrespective of the person sitting opposite to him. To be fair to him, he managed to surprise the 35-year-old out of the opening. At one point of time, it reduced Carlsen to sort of interviewing himself in the confession booth. “Questions you may ask,” he said while seated inside the small soundproof room. “Did I miss 9.Nb5? Yes. Was it an unpleasant surprise? Yes, at least initially. Do I think my position is playable? Yes, I also think it’s playable. That’s all!”
The Nb5 idea was around the time the Indian had managed to find a small but working advantage. On the comms, David Howell liked how the white had positioned itself from a long-term perspective. And Carlsen, aiming to win Norway Chess for an eighth time since its inception in 2013, knew he had to eke out some fighting changes as well. So, he opted for some imbalance as he doubled his pawns.
Both of them were up for the scrap so there would be no playing safe. But while Carlsen slowly started making some inroads, the Indian, yet to win a Classical game in this event, kept prodding and pushing before extending himself in the middlegame. And that’s generally been the big difference between the Gukesh of two years ago and now. He would have pushed back but now he’s seemingly desperate for a gun-fight. That has kind of given way to way some odd mistakes or outright one-move blunders.