world champion d gukesh to return to action at tata steel chess tournament

After becoming the world champion, Grandmaster D Gukesh will participate in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament starting here from Friday. After winning the World Championships in Singapore in December, Gukesh had withdrawn from the World Rapid and Blitz tournament in New York. After this he will participate in a tournament for the first time. He will start his campaign on Saturday.

The pairings will be announced at the opening ceremony on Friday. Five Indians are participating for the first time in the tournament called ‘Wimbledon of Chess’. It is one of the longest running competitions in the world having been played since 1938. World number four Arjun Erigaysi will start 2024 as the highest-rated Indian player in the tournament on the back of his stellar performances.

eDuring this time he became the second Indian after Vishwanathan Anand to cross 2800 ELO rating. R Praggnananda will also be in the running in this competition of 14 players and 13 rounds. Praggnananda probably has the most fans among the young players in the world. Vidit Gujarathi had to withdraw from the competition and the organizers chose P Harikrishna in his place. The fifth Indian is Leon Luke Mendonca who got his first big break in elite chess after winning the previous stage of the Challengers category.

World’s top-ranked Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has been married for less than two weeks, will not participate in this tournament once again. Similarly, America’s third-ranked Hikaru Nakamura will also not participate in this tournament. American Fabiano Caruana will start as the top seed with Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov and defending champion Wei Yi of China also participating. Gukesh had almost won this competition in 2024 but he lost in the tiebreaker against the Chinese player.

Disclaimer: Prabhasakshi has not edited this news. This news has been published from PTI-language feed.