Saint Louis Rapid R1-3: Gukesh's dazzling queen sacrifice
The World Champion, D Gukesh started with a loss against Levon Aronian at Grand Chess Tour Saint Louis Rapid 2025. However, he bounced back immediately in the second round with a fantastic win over Grigoriy Oparin. The game is fascinating as Gukesh sacrificed an exchange after being ahead in material. He finished things off with a queen sacrifice which his opponent accepted and allowed to be checkmated by double bishop. Gukesh finished the day with another impressive win over World Blitz 2013 champion, Liem Quang Le. Aronian has currently taken early sole lead 6/6 by winning all three games. He is closely followed by Fabiano Caruana (USA) at 5/6, then Gukesh and Wesley So at 4/6 each. Round 4 starts at 12 p.m. local time, 10:30 p.m. IST. Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
Aronian makes a perfect start, Gukesh bounces back strong
D Gukesh's next three opponents in Round 4-6 are - Sam Shankland (USA), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA) and Nodirbek Abdusattorov (UZB).
Round 1: Aronian - Gukesh: 2-0
GM Levon Aronian (USA, 2732) and GM D Gukesh (2687) have played only rated Rapid game against each other before this. The two-time World Cup winner had won that game. This time the result was also the same.
Black needed to continue his onslaught on the kingside 15...g4 which was his plan based on his previous pawn pushes on 13...g5 and 14...h5. However, he felt 16.Nb5 needed to be prevented, thus he went 15...a6? which was a big positional mistake 16.N2f3 g4 17.Ng5 Nc5 18.Qc2 gxh3 19.Bf5 hxg2 20.b4+- despite Black chomping on White's g and h-pawns, the white king on g1 is pretty safe as the g2-pawn acts like a shield, meanwhile Black has no good way to defend his e6-bishop. 20...Qe7 21.f4 Nd7 22.Bxe6 fxe6 23.Ndxe6 and White went on to win the game.
Round 2: Gukesh - Oparin: 2-0
GM D Gukesh has faced GM Grigoriy Oparin (USA, 2634) once each in a Blitz and Classical rated games. However, this was their first Rapid rated game.
To avoid any complications after Rea2 and pinning the a7-knight, Black decided to sacrifice the knight 14...Nc6 to free up his position. 13...c4? is what caused the issue in the first place as White got 14.Re2. The game continued 15.Rxa8 Qxa8 16.dxc6 Bxc6 17.Nbd2 Nxe4 18.Nxe4 Bxe4 19.Be3 h6 20.Rd2 Qa3 21.Rxd6! since there was no good way for White to defend the c3-pawn, White went for the active exchange sacrifice. Moreover it is not completely a sacrifice as White was already ahead in material before playing 21.Rxd6!
21...Bxd6 22.Qxd6 Bxf3 23.Qxe5! White is confident about the battery he will create on the long diagonal a1-h8, moreover it also defends the crucial c3-pawn. 23...Bb7 24.Bd4 f6 25.Qxb5 Qa8 26.Bxc4+ Kh8 27.f3 Rc8 28.Bd3 Bd5 29.Qd7 Bg8 30.Qf5 Rd8 31.Qxf6!
31.Qxf6! is a beautiful queen sacrifice. While it does not win immediately if Black plays 31...Rxd4, still you have to give it to the World Champion for playing such a fantastic game starting with 21.Rxd6! then 23.Qxe5! and finally 31.Qxf6! All of this happened after losing the first round game.
Try to solve questions posed from the game on ChessRanga, our interactive platform.
Round 3: Liem - Gukesh: 0-2
GM Liem Quang Le (VIE, 2655) and GM D Gukesh (2687) played only one Rapid rated game against each other. It ended in a draw. This time the World Champion went for the maximum against World Blitz 2013 champion.
25.Nxd5? is a mistake. Find out the winning continuation for Black which Gukesh executed in the game.
Replay live stream
Replay Round 1-3 games
Schedule and Format
Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz will have three rounds per day in the Rapid portion from 11th to 13th August. The Blitz event will take place on 14th and 15th August. It will be a double round-robin event for the Blitz which means nine rounds will be played on each day. Round 1 starts at 12 p.m. local time, 10:30 p.m. IST. It will be a 10-player Round Robin event. Time control for Rapid will be 25 minutes + 10 seconds increment. For Blitz, it will be 5 minutes + 2 seconds increment.
Round 3 results
Standings after Round 3
Round 4-6 pairings
| Round 4 on 2025/08/12 at 12:00 | ||||||||||
| Bo. | No. | Rtg | White | Result | Black | Rtg | No. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 | 2621 | GM | Shankland, Sam | GM | Gukesh, D | 2687 | 7 | ||
| 2 | 8 | 2725 | GM | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | GM | Le, Quang Liem | 2655 | 6 | ||
| 3 | 9 | 2721 | GM | Abdusattorov, Nodirbek | GM | Oparin, Grigoriy | 2634 | 5 | ||
| 4 | 1 | 2705 | GM | Dominguez Perez, Leinier | GM | Aronian, Levon | 2732 | 4 | ||
| 5 | 2 | 2704 | GM | So, Wesley | GM | Caruana, Fabiano | 2750 | 3 | ||
| Round 5 on 2025/08/12 at 13:30 | ||||||||||
| Bo. | No. | Rtg | White | Result | Black | Rtg | No. | |||
| 1 | 3 | 2750 | GM | Caruana, Fabiano | GM | Shankland, Sam | 2621 | 10 | ||
| 2 | 4 | 2732 | GM | Aronian, Levon | GM | So, Wesley | 2704 | 2 | ||
| 3 | 5 | 2634 | GM | Oparin, Grigoriy | GM | Dominguez Perez, Leinier | 2705 | 1 | ||
| 4 | 6 | 2655 | GM | Le, Quang Liem | GM | Abdusattorov, Nodirbek | 2721 | 9 | ||
| 5 | 7 | 2687 | GM | Gukesh, D | GM | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | 2725 | 8 | ||
| Round 6 on 2025/08/12 at 15:00 | ||||||||||
| Bo. | No. | Rtg | White | Result | Black | Rtg | No. | |||
| 1 | 10 | 2621 | GM | Shankland, Sam | GM | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | 2725 | 8 | ||
| 2 | 9 | 2721 | GM | Abdusattorov, Nodirbek | GM | Gukesh, D | 2687 | 7 | ||
| 3 | 1 | 2705 | GM | Dominguez Perez, Leinier | GM | Le, Quang Liem | 2655 | 6 | ||
| 4 | 2 | 2704 | GM | So, Wesley | GM | Oparin, Grigoriy | 2634 | 5 | ||
| 5 | 3 | 2750 | GM | Caruana, Fabiano | GM | Aronian, Levon | 2732 | 4 | ||
Prize
The total prize fund for each of the Rapid and Blitz event is US$ 175000. The top three prizes are $40000, $30000 and $25000.
