It was a less-than stellar start for India's D Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi at the 2024 SuperUnited Croatia Rapid & Blitz event, with the pair bottom of the standings after a tough day 1. With the late withdrawal of Magnus Carlsen overshadowing proceedings, much was expected from World Championship challenger Gukesh, but his weakness in rapid & blitz formats of chess came to the fore.
After the three rounds of Day 1, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave had the overall lead, with two wins and a draw earning him 5 points from the available six. Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So were tied in second place with 4 points, while Ian Nepomniachtchi, Anish Giri, Alireza Firouzja, Levon Aronian (a late wildcard entry after Carlsen's withdrawal), Ivan Saric were all tied in fourth place with 3 points each. Gukesh (2 points) and Vidit (0 points) brought up the rear, neither of them managing a win.
Vidit began his day against the might of Caruana, and soon ended up in a losing position. However, Caruana spoiled his winning position, but took advantage of Vidit being down to three seconds on the clock before taking the victory. The 29-year-old Indian had games against Aronian and Saric (both wildcards like Vidit) next, in what were perhaps his easiest pairings of the tournament, but Vidit blundered his way to two additional losses.
Playing white against Aronian, Vidit was a pawn up with his opponent happy to sacrifice them, but left his king stranded on e1. A blunder on 27.d5 saw him grant an opening to his opponent's bishop, and there was no coming back. Vidit fared no better against Saric, bungling his opening with a knight fork on move seven instead of six, and it was downhill thereafter.
Gukesh, meanwhile opened his tournament with a loss to So. It was a fairly even game until Gukesh fell for a trap, grabbing a pawn with his queen (39...Qxe6), leaving an opening for So to pounce with his queen for checkmate in the 40th move.
Gukesh bounced back slightly from his opening round loss, playing even games against Firouzja and Anish and forcing draws, as nine of the 15 games in the first three rounds were stalemates. Nepomniachtchi had draws in all three games, taking his streak of stalemates to 15 - going back to the FIDE Candidates.
Gukesh's task doesn't get easier later, as he faces leader MVL in the next round (black), while Vidit (white) will face So. The Indian pair then meet in Round 5 (Gukesh playing white), after which Gukesh (black) takes on Nepomniachtchi and Vidit (white) faces Anish Giri.