GM Fabiano Caruana beat GMs Levon Aronian and Ivan Saric and escaped against GM Wesley So to climb into sole first place after day two of the 2024 SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz Croatia. The previous leader, GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, blundered and lost to GM Gukesh Dommaraju, who went on to match Caruana’s 5/6 for the day.   

Day three starts Friday, July 12, at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CEST / 6:30 p.m. IST.

SuperUnited Croatia Rapid & Blitz Standings After Day 2

Sigrun Øen Honored With Minute’s Silence

Day two in Zagreb began soon after we’d learned the tragic reason that GM Magnus Carlsen had pulled out of the tournament at the last moment—his mother, Sigrun Øen, was terminally ill and has now passed away at the age of just 61. The Grand Chess Tour commemorated the former world champion’s mother with a one-minute silence. 

A moment of silence in Zagreb for the passing of Magnus Carlsen’s mother, Sigrun Øen#GrandChessTour pic.twitter.com/OztCMhu2JH

— chess24 (@chess24com) July 11, 2024

Many legends of the game joined in paying their respects.  

My condolences to Magnus and his family on the loss of his mother, Sigrun Øen. There is no pain like it. I can only wish him strength and hope in cherishing her memory and in knowing that she will always be guiding him.

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) July 11, 2024

Sigrun Øen, mother of the World No1. @MagnusCarlsen passed away. Our biggest condolences to Magnus and his family!🙏 pic.twitter.com/B16WqxhHd5

— Judit Polgar (@GMJuditPolgar) July 11, 2024

Really sad to hear the news. My sincere condolences to @MagnusCarlsen, Henrik and the entire Carlsen family to find strength at this difficult moment.

— Viswanathan Anand (@vishy64theking) July 11, 2024

My deepest condolences @MagnusCarlsen on your tragic loss. May her memory be a blessing.

— Hikaru Nakamura (@GMHikaru) July 11, 2024

 In Zagreb, however, the chess had to go on. 

Gukesh Beats Leader, Gets Back Into Contention

Vachier-Lagrave’s powerful start in Zagreb looked set to continue as the leader soon took complete control against Gukesh in the first round of the day. The World Championship Challenger described how it felt: “This game was so horrible. Soon after the opening I had like 30 seconds versus 15 minutes, with a lost position.” 

Gukesh was simply happy to have kept in the game, until his French opponent’s 42nd move gave up any remaining advantage, while the 43rd gave up the game. 43.Rh1?? left Gukesh for a brief moment wondering if he’d blundered his queen, before he gave a check that saw Vachier-Lagrave physically rocked back on his chair. Checkmate was inevitable. 

Leader MVL blunders and loses to Gukesh! https://t.co/ZZNOhSCGK3 #GrandChessTour pic.twitter.com/qHWd8LdAiI

— chess24 (@chess24com) July 11, 2024

That was a springboard for Gukesh, who commented: “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!”

Sometimes you need these moments of luck!

—Gukesh Dommaraju

For the second game of the day, Gukesh faced a struggling GM Vidit Gujrathi, who had just suffered a fourth loss in a row after being ground down in 111 moves by So.

The writing seemed to be on the wall again for Vidit when he grabbed a poisoned pawn and got his queen trapped, but by the end, he’d not only survived but missed some chances to win the game.

The game ended with an unusual draw by seven-fold repetition! 

Have Gukesh and Vidit just set a world record for repeating a position? Try counting how many times they repeated the same position! This happens when both players are determined to win and are not satisfied with a draw!#GrandChessTour #SuperUnitedRapidBlitzCroatia #Chess… pic.twitter.com/Nbbo52G9dg

— Grand Chess Tour (@GrandChessTour) July 11, 2024

Gukesh explained:

“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.”

Gukesh ended the day with a win against GM Ian Nepomniachtchi which was impressively smooth except for two things—a dodgy opening (he’d fallen into his opponent’s prep), and that he made one move with just one second remaining on his clock. He noted: “When you have one second you usually feel the panic after you play the move!”

After a slow start in Zagreb, Gukesh now finds himself two points, or one rapid win, behind the leader: “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.” 

I’m happy to be in this situation and hope to play some good games tomorrow.

—Gukesh Dommaraju

The leader to catch is Caruana.

Caruana Takes Over As Sole Leader

“Today was a good day, the first two games went very smoothly…” said Caruana, who took full advantage of Vachier-Lagrave’s struggles. He got off to the perfect start by bamboozling GM Levon Aronian in the opening. He explained his approach:

“I thought the f3-Nimzo is completely forgotten these days, nobody plays it anymore. Black has like 50 different adequate ways to play, White has to know so much and Black has to know so little, but it’s easy to forget what to do with Black because you face it so rarely, so I thought maybe today is the day.”

Aronian surprised Caruana on move nine, but was essentially doomed by move 14.

Caruana then punished some needless aggression by Saric to win the second game before surviving a grueling encounter against So in the final game of the day.

As he put it, “Against Wesley, I felt like I was for sure losing. It was such a tough defense and so unpleasant. I basically just have to wait passively at some point and hope that he doesn’t crush me.”

I basically just have to wait passively at some point and just hope that he doesn’t crush me.

—Fabiano Caruana

If So had won, he would have taken over as leader, but instead, Caruana held on to make a 105-move draw.

Fabiano Caruana pulls off a great escape against Wesley So to remain the sole leader after Day 2 in Croatia! https://t.co/RnpYgYLJtL #GrandChessTour pic.twitter.com/RpaLbVuXFa

— chess24 (@chess24com) July 11, 2024

The tournament remains wide open, however, with French GM Alireza Firouzja level with Vachier-Lagrave and Gukesh, just two points behind Caruana. He started the day by winning a wild clash against GM Anish Giri.

That entertaining battle is our Game of the Day, which has been analyzed by GM Rafael Leitao below:

There’s just one day of rapid chess to go before switching to blitz, so the players and their seconds were refueling for the challenge ahead.

Not the latest episode of the @CSQpod. pic.twitter.com/jcEDwOomle

— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) July 11, 2024

How to watch?

The 2024 SuperUnited Croatia Rapid & Blitz is the third event on the 2024 Grand Chess Tour and runs July 10-14 in the Westin Hotel in Zagreb, Croatia. The 10 players first compete in a single rapid round-robin with a time control of 25 minutes plus a 10-second increment per move, followed by a blitz double round-robin with a 5+2 time control.