Before the rest day at the Tata Steel Masters, Carlsen had lost to Anish Giri, and in the very next round, he was shockingly defeated by 18-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov. The last time Carlsen had lost two classical games in a row was in 2015, at the Norway Chess event, where he lost to Veselin Topalov and Fabiano Caruana in the first two rounds of the super-tournament.
Parham Maghsoodloo bounced back from his loss against Abdusattorov by taking down a Jorden van Foreest in shaky form, while Levon Aronian grabbed his first victory of the event in his game with white against Vincent Keymer.
A mistake by Carlsen that costs him the game. He should have played 44.Kh3 to put up more stubborn resistance.
Fabiano Caruana joined Anish Giri in 2nd place in the Tata Steel Masters after getting revenge for losing to 16-year-old Gukesh at the Chennai Olympiad. Wesley So picked up his first win of 2023 after Vincent Keymer again crumbled in the endgame, while Magnus Carlsen stopped the bleeding with a draw against Jorden van Foreest.
Fabi said he was “almost winning, because [Gukesh's] pieces are completely uncoordinated”. How would Gukesh defend against White taking twice on f6? He didn’t!