Gukesh has always gravitated towards this move, and in today's crucial match-up he stays true to sharp king's pawn play.
The two main weapons for the White side are either the Spanish (Ruy Lopez) or the Italian. Gukesh goes for the latter, a system designed to keep lots of pieces on the board and maintain tension and rich play for as long as possible.
Svane targets the central pawn.
Gukesh activates his bishop, while defending against the threat on his pawn.
Svane steps his own dark-squared bishop forward, mirroring the choice of Gukesh.
A key advantage of the Italian Game is that the White side has not yet developed their queenside knight. So instead of planting the knight awkwardly on the square behind the light-squared bishop, a pawn can go there in its place. And that might allow Gukesh to go for a fast central expansion in the future.
Grabbing a little queenside space, while also making room for the dark-squared bishop to drop back if attacked.
Gukesh brings his rook into play, lending some additional support to the central pawn.
Very typical play for now, with Svane bringing his king to safety before figuring out how he's going to complete his minor piece development.
Prophylaxis
Gukesh anticipates a possible move from Svane (developing his bishop to pin the kingside knight) and decides to stop it in its tracks. That might slightly frustrate Svane, as he's not exactly spoiled for choice in terms of where to develop his light-squared piece.
Svane also decides to put a stop to the possible pin against his own knight.
The beginning of a typical maneuver
We often see this way of playing in the Italian Game, as the queenside knight seeks out an active role in the battle by transferring itself over to the kingside.
A non-committal move
For now, Svane doesn't define what he's going to do about his light-squared bishop. Instead, he tucks his already developed piece back one square, making it a bit safer against possible attacks from Gukesh's pawns in the future.
Gukesh balances the scales
He contests Svane's space advantage on that flank, by opposing the pawn on that side of the board and leveling things out.
Svane steps his bishop out one square
In many instances, the Black sides actually moves it out two squares to offer up a trade of light-squared bishops. But that would have invited Gukesh to trade and double Svane's pawns, something that the German grandmaster seems to not want to risk.
An unorthodox approach
Gukesh is going his own way in this one, with this move marking the start of a novel handling of this Italian Game position. One idea that the World Champion might have is to fianchetto his bishop and support a pawn push in the center down the line.
Svane does offer the bishop trade!
It may seem strange to first have stepped the bishop out only one square, and now step it out a second in order to offer the piece trade. But Svane is picking up on the fact that Gukesh no longer has the typical queen-out-along-the-diagonal maneuver that can be quite annoying to meet after a bishop exchange.
Gukesh develops his bishop, ignoring the piece tension and hinting at a possible central pawn advance in the near future.
Svane tucks his king away
A slight improving move, just bringing the king onto a safer square away from the potentially vulnerable light-squared diagonal.
An unusual looking move
It may seem strange to lift the rook up one square, where it only points at the bishop. But in fact, it's quite a common idea in this type of position. The point is that in the future the rook may be useful in defending the weakest pawn on Gukesh's kingside, to the left of his king.
Svane takes aim at the key square
A typical maneuver, bringing the knight to the edge and threatening to jump forward onto an aggressive post.
The typical maneuvering continues
Gukesh is also operating in conventional fashion, bringing his knight back and making space for either a bishop maneuver (unlikely) or a knight jump in the future (much more likely!). Besides this, his queen is now influencing the central square, which makes the pawn push more likely to happen soon.
A couple of interesting directions for Gukesh to take the game in, with one option being to drop the bishop back to challenge the invader knight. While another path forward is to prepare the central pawn push, grabbing space and looking to open up some lines.
Gukesh drops his bishop back, threatening to capture the knight and force damage to Svane's structure.
Svane steps his queen out, covering against the threat of bishop takes knight.
Gukesh with a sneaky threat
In some variations, he can now threaten to play bishop takes knight. The point is that queen takes knight in return is no longer on the cards, since then Gukesh would jump forward with his right-hand knight and trap the enemy queen, as shown by the arrows.
Svane overprotects his knight
This cuts out any tactics based on trapping the queen, since now bishop takes knight would be met by taking back with the newly advanced pawn.
Gukesh drops back
The slow maneuvering continues, with the knight retreating in order to prepare a jump forward to hit the enemy queen. Notice how useful it is for Gukesh to have placed his rook on the second rank some moves ago?!
Svane shifts his queen to the right, stepping away from the potential knight jump.
Gukesh keeps things controlled
A safe choice, targeting what is arguably Svane's best piece. Now the dark squared bishops may come off the board, which would ease any pressure against Gukesh's king.
Svane has to pick up the pace here, as he finds himself down to just 10 minutes with over 20 moves to go until the time control (where they'll receive an extra half an hour on the clock). Still, he's doing all the right things, as he contests the center and forces some trades to simplify matters.
Gukesh has no real choice but to agree to the exchange of pawns, since his bishop was under attack.
Svane takes back with his bishop
He's now got very well-arranged pieces, and if anything it's Gukesh that has to be a little more careful that his pawns aren't going to be too loose after the quick flurry of exchanges.
Gukesh begins by swapping off dark-squared bishops, inflicting a small amount of damage on Svane's structure.
Svane takes back
Gukesh now has to watch out for the threat against the pawn in front of his king.
Gukesh regroups
Now that the action has shifted firmly towards the center, both sides must scramble to get their pieces near that part of the board. Gukesh, for his part, brings his edge knight back into the game.
Svane has similar ideas, bringing his rook to exert influence along the central file.
Gukesh does likewise, supporting his central pawn by sliding the left-hand rook onto the file.
Svane finds a good moment to trade bishops, since now Gukesh is going to be forced to accept doubled pawns.
Gukesh takes with the central pawn, ridding himself of his vulnerable pawn and at the same time avoiding leaving himself with any isolated pawns on the queenside.
Svane supports the central pawn
Gukesh has gotten less than nothing from this one, and I would not be surprised if he's already thinking about guiding this one towards a draw. Svane has the healthier structure, and to my eyes the better placed pieces.
Svane continues to play very strong chess
It's been an impressive showing from the 21-year old German over their two-game mini match. Gukesh has to tread very carefully here as his queen is under fire and his queenside pawns could become quite weak quickly.
He finds the right square for his queen, a good sign for him and his many fans. Svane's weak pawn is now under immediate pressure on the left hand side.
But Svane is showing that he's able to trade blows on an equal footing here with Gukesh, as he ignores the attack on his pawn and instead focuses on building up the central pressure.
Gukesh drops his knight back, and is now threatening to win the pawn in the center.
Svane jumps into the center with his knight, targeting Gukesh's rook and forcing an immediate reaction.
Gukesh shifts his rook to the left, pressuring the knight.
Svane presses forward, forking queen and knight
But it's not a losing situation for Gukesh, as he can bring his queen forward and make use of the fact that Svane's own queen is undefended.
Gukesh does exactly that, saving his piece by hitting Svane's queen.
Svane defends his queen, renewing the threat of pawn takes knight.
Gukesh has no choice but to agree to the queen exchange, as he cannot move his attacked knight without losing control over his queen.
But now Svane will be happy to bring his king to a more active square.
Gukesh moves towards the central square, not so much because it's the most active spot but because it's important to stop Svane's pawn from marching further up the board.
Svane slightly better!
It's too early to suggest that we're going to witness an upset, with the position still very close to balanced. But it's clear that if Gukesh could choose, he would rather have the Black pieces here. Svane's pawn chain is more threatening, while his pieces appear to be more active.
Gukesh lends support to his central knight.
A very human choice, threatening both the knight and pawn of Gukesh.
Gukesh keeps things safe, stepping away from the pin while supporting his attacked knight.
A strong move from Svane, who could have just dropped back with his knight to the square it sat on previously. But perhaps he senses that he's got the better position, and wants to try and create some winning chances from here?! A bold move if so, but will it pay off...?
Gukesh supports his knight.
Svane adds to the pressure, invading with his rook along the weak square. The position definitely looks a little ugly for Gukesh, but with correct play he should be able to contain Svane's initiative and guide the game to a draw.
Svane is trying to make progress, but if anything Gukesh might be happy to see this move on the board. He can now take the pawn, and look to activate his rook via the open file.
Gukesh, after quite a bit of a think, decides to recapture. It's the right decision, opening up the right-hand file for his rook.
Svane recognizes that trading rooks suits him, though it's still extremely hard to find a way to make progress from here. He'll have to find some tricky knight maneuvers to really put the pressure on Gukesh.
Svane follows through on his plan of trading off rooks.
The slow phase begins, as both players have now reached the time control and Svane emerges with a position that he knows he can try to play for a win from, while running very little risk. Next up, he is likely intending to bring his knight forward via the weak squares.
Gukesh finally makes a move, though it's hard to guess what he intends to do if Svane simply begins the deadly knight maneuver indicated on the previous move.
Svane goes for the knight maneuver, and soon Gukesh will be forced to answer the very difficult question of how to meet this invading piece.
For now, Gukesh keeps shuffling with his king. But the problem is that once the knight enters the position, it will hit the base of his pawn chain in a way that is not easy to defend.
Svane prepares to enter the position with his knight.
The king shuffling has not been in vain. Now, Svane has managed to triangulate in order to leave it be Gukesh who has to make a move. This is a real problem for him, as he lacks any useful moves from here.
Gukesh saw nothing better than to exchange, but now Svane's structure is fixed while he maintains a huge lead in space and the threat of jumping his knight into the outpost in front of Gukesh's king.
Defending the pawn against the threat by Gukesh's knight.
In desperation, Gukesh moves forward with his king. But now Svane can target the pawn from the right hand flank.
The game enters its final stages, as there is no way for Gukesh to save his pawn.
A desperate attempt to drum up some counterplay.
Gukesh has managed to win back his missing pawn, but the only one that really matters is the super dangerous passer on the right flank.
Gukesh has to drop back in order to stop the pawn from queening.
A hugely unexpected result, as yet another of the pre-tournament favorites bows out of the competition.
Congratulations to Frederik Svane, who showed world-class play to not only keep up with Gukesh in a complicated Italian Game, but to in fact outplay him in the middlegame and set himself up as the only side with serious winning chances.
It was in many respects a strange affair, with Gukesh appearing to have a very comfortable position that seemed to contain little risk for him.
But Svane, in spite of having very little time on the clock with many moves to go to the time control, just kept playing the best move one after another. And a frustrated Gukesh was forced to deal with the fall-out of a well-timed pawn break from Svane in the center. It was a move that left Svane's pieces bursting to life, while Gukesh found himself with somewhat awkward coordination.
The World Champion tried his best to fan the flames, and for a while it looked like the game would ultimately be headed towards a draw. However, a poor decision on move 39 changed everything for the worse for him, as he allowed the last set of rooks to be traded and left Svane with a knight endgame that looked close to impossible to save.
Indeed, Svane showcased impressive endgame technique to bring home the full point from here. Gukesh tried his best to mount resistance, but there were too many weaknesses and he soon lost a key pawn and with it, the game.
Once again, congratulations to GM Svane for pulling off an improbable result, booking his ticket to round 4!
Unfortunately, it seems that we've lost the transmission due to a broadcast issue. Gukesh remains in trouble, with Svane having followed through and brought his knight forward.
Gukesh primed to strike!
The World Champion had a smooth run of things yesterday, making a draw while barely breaking a sweat against one of Germany's leading grandmasters, Frederik Svane.
The game was a Rossolimo, known for being a little quieter and more positional than so-called 'Open' Sicilians. And indeed, it lived up to its name, with a lot of pieces getting traded off earlyish into the middlegame, and with a feeling like there was really never going to be any other result than an eventual splitting of the point.
In a sense, neither player will be too unhappy about the outcome. For Svane, a draw against the World Champion can almost always be welcomed. While for Gukesh, he'll see today's game as the perfect opportunity to put the squeeze on with the White pieces, and try to kill the match without the need for tiebreaks.
Let's see if it plays out in the way that the Chennai grandmaster will be hoping for, or whether we might just see another twist and turn in a World Cup that has already seen many of the top names eliminated!
Just about 15 minutes to go until kick-off, stay tuned for live move-by-move commentary!