Gukesh beat Day 1 leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with black pieces at the start of Day 2 to rise up the standings at the SuperUnited Tournament in Croatia. This came after a big blunder from Vachier-Lagrave with the major pieces still on the board. After the match, World Championship challenger Gukesh would say, "This was a huge boost. If I had lost this and gone to minus two it would have been horrible, especially with the game that I played, but sometimes you need these moments of luck!"
In the next round, he drew with compatriot Vidit Gujrathi (the two Indian representatives in the tournament), of which Gukesh said, "I guess we both didn't want a draw, and we were just hoping that something would happen. I didn't want to claim the draw because if he gets excited at some point I can still win the game."
In the last round of the day, Gukesh scored a big win over Ian Nepomniachtchi where he recovered from a bad start, and a move which he made with barely a second left on the clock. He and Caruana (who beat Levon Aronian and Ivan Saric, and escaped with a draw against Wesley So) were the top scorers on this second day.
"I'm happy to be in this situation. If I had won the second game today could have gone better, but it also could have gone very badly if I'd lost the first game, so I'm happy to be in this situation and hope to play some good games tomorrow," said Gukesh.
Going into the final day of rapid, Caruana has taken sole lead with nine points, followed by So on eight and three others on seven each: Gukesh, Vachier-Lagrave and Alireza Firouzja. With every rapid win worth two points, the final day of rapid promises to be a cracker. Meanwhile, Vidit is bottom of the table, at tenth, with two points.
The day started on a somber note, with everyone in attendance sharing a minute of silence to mark the death of Magnus Carlsen's mother, Sigrun Oen.
Day 3 starts on Friday at 6.30 PM IST