It was a dream start for Surya Sekhar Ganguly at the World Rapid Championship held in Doha, Qatar. The Indian grandmaster stunned current world champion Magnus Carlsen and held him to a draw, playing with black pieces in the opening round.
Magnus, who was playing with white pieces, started the game with unusual moves in a plot to confuse Ganguly. However, the Indian kept his calm and took his chances well as Carlsen continued to play in a rather unconventional way.
Nevertheless, Ganguly had the chance to win the match but missed an elementary mate in 3 moves as Carlsen managed to draw with a perpetual check. The draw was a surprising result as the average Joe expected an easy win for the Norwegian but Ganguly was having none of it.
Speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda after the match, Ganguly said, “Heading into the match I really had no particular expectation. Carlsen is the world's best right now and I just wanted to play an aggressive game. If I played defensive, then he would have found holes in the defence and eventually thrashed me.
“So I wanted to keep him guessing, one bad move took the win away from me. However, I will take a lot of positives from this.”
Carlsen spoke after the game as he said, “"It was a typical first round game. I was actually doing pretty well, but then it came out of control."
The Indian followed his impressive showing against Carlsen with another exciting draw against Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniaschhi. Carlsen, on the other hand, lost in the second round against Levan Pantsulaia but scored his first win in the third round against Cristobal Henriquez Villagra.
Earlier in the year, Carlsen had retained his World Championship after prevailing over Sergey Karajkin of Russia in New York City. Ganguly has had an average year winning the 11th Edmonton International-Main and the 16th Bangkok Chess Club Open. He also came second at the O2C Doeberl Cup Premier and at the 25th Keres Memorial.
Day 2 of the Rapid Event will see 15 rounds being played to decide the World Champion in the Rapid format of the game.
