{"id":3107,"date":"2025-05-31T17:50:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-31T15:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skolasachu.com\/?p=3107"},"modified":"2025-06-01T18:04:32","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T16:04:32","slug":"inventory-for-the-19th-birthday-bucharest-and-stavanger-gukeshs-day-of-glory-or-maximalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skolasachu.com\/en\/inventura-k-19-narozeninam-bukurest-a-stavanger-gukeshova-dan-slave-nebo-maximalismu\/","title":{"rendered":"Inventory for the 19th birthday. Bucharest and Stavanger: Gukesh's toll of glory or maximalism?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Motto: M<\/em>Maximalist approach<\/em> in chess denotes a style where the player tries to find the objectively best move in a given position, without compromises, even at the cost of high time and energy demands.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Among the most prominent chess players (not only in history), for me the synonym of chess maximalism has always been Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine! <\/em><\/p>\n

The youngest world champion experienced his first serious setback at the Bucharest tournament after winning the title! No, it is not just about scoring below 50 points, but at least two clearly warning signs in those two lost games, when there could have been more\u2026 roughly the same number as missed opportunities. In the article, I will focus on Gukesh's examples, while I will say straight away that the whole tournament seemed to me, as they say, bland and uninspiring. Only 14 decisive games, 5 draws within 30 moves, some moreover in well-known theoretical positions. The greatest joy from such a result will probably be Jan Henric Buettner, the generous sponsor of nonsense 960. Yet everything could have been different if Gukesh had paradoxically not seen so much behind the board in the first round and the win against the eventual winner had not slipped through his fingers.<\/p>\n

At the time of writing this article, the traditional supertournament is being played in Norway. And what luck? In the very first round, the 16th and 18th world champions faced each other! How else could the game end than with a peak time scramble in an extremely demanding position for calculation with a number of only moves?!<\/p>\n

In the second round game \u2013 like a copycat \u2013 the world champion lost again\u2026 but about that only at the end of the article.<\/p>\n

The world champion celebrated his nineteenth birthday on 29 May. I think it is fully appropriate to carry out some kind of annual inventory, especially in connection with the recent tournaments!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Decline in form and its causes<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

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I will probably never forget a short passage from an article published sometime in the late 1970s. The coach (probably A. Nikitin) admonishes the young Garry (of course I paraphrase): \u201eGarry, this won't do! You are almost in time trouble in every game!\u201c \u201eBut there are so many variations!\u201c<\/strong> answers the future world champion. Kasparov always belonged to chess maximalists. In every position, he tried to find the best move! Moreover, to readers who have never held the book My Chess Career (1973-1985)<\/em> I recommend taking a look at it. What the schoolboy Garry managed to calculate (and as he sometimes writes himself without special effort<\/em>) and what fantastic twists he discovered behind the board is simply unprecedented! (I cannot resist adding one interesting fact. After the exhibition match Kasparov vs. Miles in 1986, which ended 5.5 - 0.5, the English grandmaster declared: \"I thought I was playing against the world champion, not against a monster with a thousand eyes that sees everything!\u201c)<\/p>\n

I believe that Gukesh is exactly this type of chess player. Of course, besides the effort to find the best moves, he also intensely perceives chess beauty and thus occasionally succumbs to it. Maximalism<\/strong>, the desire to calculate everything seen behind the board, immense fighting spirit, but probably also an innate tendency to overestimate one's chances (just like young Garry \u2013 as he himself later admitted \u2013 tended to overrate dynamic factors in the fight in his youth) can then lead and of course do lead to occasional crashes! Also at play is some notion of duty towards the world champion title. Namely to play equal positions with everyone<\/em> to win\u2026<\/p>\n

One explanation<\/strong> of Gukesh's failure at the Bucharest tournament and the start of the Stavanger tournament I have therefore just briefly described. We can fully believe him, consider it a partial explanation, or look for causes elsewhere.<\/p>\n

I admit that the explanation<\/strong> second<\/strong>, more pragmatic, also sounds somewhat more concrete to me. We can probably imagine what hype<\/em> the media managed to create after Gukesh's December victory and winning the world champion title. At only 18 years old, even in the best case, no one can fully cope with various invitations not only to interviews, parties, but also to advertising offers. But is there then enough time left for daily many-hour training? I am afraid not!<\/p>\n

The third explanation<\/strong> also has something to it, although it does not exclude the previous two. It is based on the traditional if<\/em><\/strong>! Gukesh's mental peace was disturbed right in the first round of the Bucharest event by a huge missed chance to defeat, as it turned out, the eventual winner. A similar crash then happened in the third round\u2026<\/p>\n

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when things do not go well\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

To be able to fully focus below on the world champion's performance, let's start from the end\u2026<\/p>\n

Results and necessary blitz<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

The final table of the third Grand Chess Tour event looked like this.<\/p>\n

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Praggnanandhaa was caught in the last round, and Firouzja and Vachier-Lagrave also climbed to +2. In the subsequent blitz tiebreak, i.e. a mini-tournament, Praggnanandhaa showed the steadiest nerves and thus celebrated another triumph after Wijk aan Zee!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Let us now look unconventionally<\/em> for the broadcast of the last game of the Bucharest clash, however with the traditional<\/em> Sagar commentary \ud83d\ude42. .<\/p>\n