American Fabiano Caruana bounced back with a resounding win against young Nodirbek Abdusattorov and regained lost ground in the sixth round of the 2023 Norway Chess championships in Stavenger, Norway on Monday.
The 30-year-old Caruana US showed the Uzbek, 12 years his junior, fine positional play with black of a Ruy Lopez Berlin defense and tallied the only victory in the classical game worth three points. It was his fourth scalp after losing in the fifth round and padded his lead to 2.5 points over compatriot Hikaru Nakamura.
Nakamura, 35, defeated another teenager, erstwhile World No. 2 Alireza Firouzja, 19, in the Armageddon tiebreaker as the musical chairs race for World No. 2 to 4 raged on.
With the win, Caruana regained World No. 2 status after getting relegated to No. 4 momentarily in round five while Nakamura, who briefly held the No. 2 spot, slid to No. 3, just a fraction of a point ahead of Firouzja with three rounds left.
Nakamura, who beat Firouzja soundly in 46 moves with black of a Guioco Piano, gained 1.5 points and has a total of 11 points in the new scoring system used by organizers which rewards more points to victories earned in the classical chess format.
Firouzja gained just a point and fell further to a tie of third and fourth with Gukesh Dommaraju of India with 8.5 points.
Gukesh, the youngest participant at 17, won with white in the Armageddon against the veteran Anish Giri of the Netherlands, 28.
Ex-world champion Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So of the US won with black in the Armageddon against Aryan Tari of Norway and Shakriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan, respectively, and inched closer to a tie of sixth and seventh, half-a-point behind Mamedyarov who was at solo fifth with eight points.
Carlsen, So, Giri and Tari still have to log in wins in the classical games.
Standings after Round 6: Caruana 13.5, Nakamnura 11; Firouzja, Gukesh 8.5; Mamedyarov 8, Carlsen, So 7.5; Giri 7, Abdusattorov 6, Tari 3.
