Firouzja Bounces Back, Caruana Spoils Win In Bucharest

After his painful loss in the opening round, GM Alireza Firouzja recovered with a victory against GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov on Thursday at the Superbet Chess Classic Romania. This time it was GM Fabiano Caruana's turn to spoil a winning position as he drew his game with GM Wesley So.

The games Ian Nepomniachtchi vs. Gukesh Dommaraju, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu vs. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Bogdan-Daniel Deac vs. Anish Giri ended in draws as well.

Round three starts Friday, June 28, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 17:30 p.m. IST.

Superbet Chess Classic Romania Round 2 Results

Superbet Chess Classic Romania Standings After Round 2

The second round took place the night after Romania reached the round of 16 at Euro 2024 as the winner of group E. As soon as their match with Slovakia ended, the streets of Bucharest flooded with football fans and there were fireworks on University Square, all visible and audible from the hotel where the players are staying and the tournament is held. 

The participants of the #SuperbetChessClassicRomania might have a hard time sleeping tonight, as Romanian football fans are still celebrating their team's victory in Group E at EURO 2024 right outside the main hotel! #EURO2024#grandchesstour #chessfootball #garrykasparov pic.twitter.com/HujUicgT1i

— Grand Chess Tour (@GrandChessTour) June 26, 2024

The next opponent for Romania is the Netherlands, a matchup we saw today as well for the Deac-Giri game. It was former football player Florin Răducioiu making the first symbolic move for the only Romanian participant, to start the second round. Possibly a chess fan himself, Răducioiu was probably not aware yet that the Netherlands, besides England and Germany, is one of the teams that has chess fans among its players. Perhaps a Romanian reader can inform us in the comments whether that's also the case for some of the Romanian footballers?

Firouzja 1-0 Abdusattorov

Firouzja and Abdusattorov had played each other in only three classical games before, with the only decisive game going to the Frenchman at Norway Chess 2023. He leads 2-0 against Uzbekistan's 2021 World Rapid Champion after today, as Abdusattorov miscalculated in the early middlegame.

That was a welcome development for Firouzja, who came to the board after a bad first day. "It was a terrible day yesterday," he said. "I was in a very bad shape I think."

It was a terrible day yesterday. I was in a very bad shape I think.
—Alireza Firouzja

Firouzja didn't expect his opponent to play the Slav and decided over-the-board to go for the Exchange variation. It's not much for White, but Black does have to be accurate. Abdusattorov played fast in the opening and got a passive but solid position.

The key moment was on move 18, where Abdusattorov spent 22 minutes calculating. Firouzja's answer was one that he must have looked at, because he then played his next move quickly. It turned out to be a big mistake.

Firouzja won a pawn, and Abdusattorov immediately decided to give another one in search of activity, but a pawn is a pawn, especially if it's two! The game was virtually over by move 27.

Caruana ½-½ So

Our Game of the Day is actually one of the four draws of the day, but what a fight it was. Caruana played the first half strongly and beautifully, getting very close to his second win in a row, a 2800+ rating, and reclaiming the world number-two position in the live ratings. But no, that didn't happen in the end, as So profited from his opponent's time trouble and escaped with a draw.

Twenty years after their first game at the 2004 World Youth U12 in Heraklion, Greece (won by So), the two American grandmasters faced each other for what was their 49th classical game. After today, So is still leading their head-to-head by one game.

Like the other day, Caruana avoided opening theory, this time by going 1.c4 e5 2.d3!?. That worked out fine, and even more than fine when So started to go wrong on move 16.

"All my problems started when I played 16…b6," said So, who added that he "totally missed" the move 18.d4! and then also overlooked the pretty 21.Nxf7!.

The position after 21.Nxf7. The point is 21...Kxf7 22.Qb3+ Re6 and now the quiet move 23.Rfe1 wins in all lines.

Realizing he was getting outplayed, So was close to throwing in the towel. "It's not my fault! I wanted to resign for like 15 times in this game, like, seriously, at least 10 times, I wanted to just resign," he said. So decided to continue because of the time control: "I realized there’s a new time control where you don't get bonus time after move 40. Fabi started using tons of time when I was ready to resign so I thought, I make one more move, two more moves."

Fabi started using tons of time when I was ready to resign so I thought, I make one more move, two more moves.
—Wesley So

Caruana was still winning on move 39, but there he went under three minutes and made the first mistake, and then another one followed that spoiled his advantage. A tough time control indeed.

Check out GM Dejan Bojkov's annotations below:

Nepomniachtchi ½-½ Gukesh

In what was the longest game of the round, Nepomniachtchi tried to squeeze water from a stone like a certain 16th world champion has done so many times. On the other side of the board was the player that beat the Russian GM in Wijk aan Zee this year and then also prevented him from qualifying for his third world title match in a row: Gukesh. The teenage Indian GM demonstrated his incredibly mature chess once again by defending wonderfully for 90 moves.

Gukesh copied GM Hikaru Nakamura's recent pet line in the Ruy Lopez with 4...Bc5 and 5...Nge7, and Nepomniachtchi deviated from his Candidates game against the American GM on move 10. He followed Firouzja's recipe that the Frenchman had used to beat Nakamura in the Bullet Chess Championship, but of course Gukesh had prepared something against that too. Nepomniachtchi was definitely better at some point, but his opponent just wouldn't make any big mistakes in the hours that followed.

Ian Nepomniachtchi realizes he has tried all his chances and decides it's time to finish the game in a draw against Gukesh D. #grandchesstour #superbetchessclassicromania #chess pic.twitter.com/23vPAUAxUn

— Grand Chess Tour (@GrandChessTour) June 27, 2024

Praggnanandhaa ½-½ Vachier-Lagrave

Speaking of pet lines, Vachier-Lagrave has been side-stepping his Grunfeld defence lately, and his Najdorf isn't an automatic choice anymore either. The Frenchman's 2...Nc6 Sicilian surprised Praggnanandhaa, who decided to play the Rossolimo, something he has a lot of experience with playing the black pieces as well – particularly in the line that came on the board.

Praggnanandhaa was of course looking at ways to block Black's c- and d-pawns and obtain a typical bind on the dark squares, but somehow he didn't like some of the options he had to do so. When he got the chance, MVL pushed his d-pawn to unleash his light-squared bishop and he was instantly doing fine.

Speaking after the game, Praggnanandhaa admitted he was delighted to be a Tour participant: "It feels really good. I watched a lot of Grand Chess Tour events and I watched many interviews like this and yeah, it’s nice to be here in one of the interviews."

I watched a lot of Grand Chess Tour events and I watched many interviews like this.
—Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu

Praggnanandhaa on his #GrandChessTour classical debut: "I've watched many interviews like this and it's nice to be in one of the interviews!" pic.twitter.com/e8y5V5KDN7

— chess24 (@chess24com) June 27, 2024

Deac ½-½ Giri

The Romanian and Dutch players played out an uneventful draw, a result that is not possible when the two countries face each other on the football pitch this coming Tuesday. A day before his 30th birthday, Giri chose to play the solid Slav, and never really got the chance to play for more than a draw. Deac played another good game and this time got low on time only at the very end, when the position was not difficult to play. It was a game with few fireworks, one that could have used extra time and penalties.

The 2024 Superbet Chess Classic Romania is the second leg of the 2024 Grand Chess Tour. The event is a 10-player round-robin with classical time control (120 minutes for the entire game, plus a 30-second increment per move). The tournament runs June 26-July 5 and features a $350,000 prize fund.

Previous coverage:

• Round 1: Caruana, Gukesh Score In Opening Round Of Superbet Chess Classic Romania