Duda New Leader At Aimchess Rapid; Gukesh Youngest Player To Beat Carlsen
Winning three games and drawing one on Sunday, GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda emerged as the new leader in the Aimchess Rapid preliminaries with three rounds to go. GM Magnus Carlsen continues to struggle with his form as he lost another game, this time against GM Gukesh D.
The games of the Aimchess Rapid preliminaries can be found here as part of our live events platform.
It was "only" an online rapid game, but Gukesh's win over Carlsen is still historic: the 16-year-old grandmaster from Chennai became the youngest player to beat the world champion in an official game (replacing the previous record of GM Praggnanandhaa R.).
It happened in round nine, the first round of the day as Carlsen, playing from a log cabin in northern Sweden, deviated from his recent Pirc/Modern repertoire and chose the French instead. The opening had little to do with the result though. Just like with GM Arjun Erigaisi, Carlsen was doing well but then made a big mistake.
"Obviously, beating Magnus is always special, but I was not really very proud of that game," Gukesh said.
Carlsen drew his next two games and finished with a win, and so he is still on course to qualify for the knockout. That's also the case for GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, despite a bad day at the office: three draws and a loss means a drop to sixth place.
Duda, on his turn, had a very good day and is now the new leader. He won a good game vs. Gukesh, who had just beaten Carlsen but this time fell for a tactic himself:
With three rounds to go, it's packed around the eighth place, the threshold for making it to the knockout phase. One of the players who is still in contention is Chess.com's regular commentator GM Daniel Naroditsky, although his schedule for the remaining rounds isn't exactly a walk in the park (Carlsen, Duda, and GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov).
Naroditsky was fortunate in the 11th round:
Aimchess Rapid | Round 12 Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Pts |
| 1 | Duda, Jan-Krzysztof | 2754 | 25 | |
| 2 | Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar | 2712 | 23 | |
| 3 | Gukesh D | 2606 | 21 | |
| 4 | Erigaisi Arjun | 2720 | 21 | |
| 5 | Carlsen, Magnus | 2902 | 21 | |
| 6 | Abdusattorov, Nodirbek | 2678 | 20 | |
| 7 | Rapport, Richard | 2735 | 18 | |
| 8 | Giri, Anish | 2737 | 18 | |
| 9 | Anton Guijarro, David | 2706 | 15 | |
| 10 | Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | 2691 | 14 | |
| 11 | Naroditsky, Daniel | 2617 | 14 | |
| 12 | Aditya Mittal | 2569 | 12 | |
| 13 | Keymer, Vincent | 2740 | 12 | |
| 14 | Grandelius, Nils | 2632 | 7 | |
| 15 | Harikrishna, Pentala | 2679 | 7 | |
| 16 | Hansen, Eric | 2618 | 7 |
All games rounds 9-12
The Aimchess Rapid, the seventh event in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, takes place October 14-20, 2022 on chess24. The preliminaries consist of a round-robin among 16 players, from which the top eight advance to the knockout stage. There, they play a match of four rapid games (15+10) in each round and if necessary, a blitz + armageddon tiebreak. The prize fund is $150,000.
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Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.
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