Gukesh turns the tables on Anish Giri in Tata Steel opener

D Gukesh

World champion D Gukesh got lucky and came back from a tough position to beat Anish Giri of Holland in the first round of the Tata Steel Masters now underway here.

Receiving his Khel Ratna on Friday and then taking a flight to Amsterdam, Gukesh reached here barely hours before the start of the first round. That probably had its toll on the young Indian but he got into top gear when it mattered the most. The game was almost lost when Gukesh found moves that left Giri with some difficult choices and the Dutchman found all but the final winning move.

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It was an eventful first round with three decisive games and making the most of his white pieces was P Harikrishna who crashed through the defenses of compatriot World No. 4 Arjun Erigaisi.

Leon Luke Mendonca let a nearly won position slip out of hand as he made several errors that gave German Vincent Keymer a winning start while R Praggnanandhaa put up a stiff resistance against Nodirbek Abdusattorov to draw eventually.

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