GM Magnus Carlsen leads the 2025 Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown after day two. The world number-one won both games in both matches against World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju and GM Hikaru Nakamura, so that he was still in first even with two losses against GM Fabiano Caruana.
Caruana, who started the day in last place, finished it in second. The highlight, of course, was beating Carlsen in back-to-back games, one of which is our Game of the Day. Nakamura and Gukesh dropped down to shared last on seven points.
The last rounds will be on Wednesday, October 29, starting at 1 p.m. ET / 18:00 CET / 10:30 p.m. IST.
Standings After Day 2
Even though it’s Carlsen in the lead, Caruana can be considered the player of the day. He scored the most points, nine, and mounted an incredible comeback from fourth place.
Standings of Day 2 Only
He explained, “Yesterday was a pretty terrible day, but luckily I had my really terrible day on the first day, when it doesn’t matter as much.” Since wins were awarded two points on day two, he already hopped over Nakamura in game one—deleting a 1.5-point gap between them—when he won in an opposite-color bishop middlegame in game one.
That wasn’t the end of the world for Nakamura, as he struck back in a knight endgame to even their score for the day. It took just one slip-up, which allowed Nakamura to activate his king and win the game.
You can listen to Nakamura’s video recap below.
From there, things would only get better for Caruana and worse for Nakamura, though. That would be Nakamura’s only win, while Caruana went on to play his most important match next. Caruana attributed to his day’s success to how he did in the second encounter: “It just went well in the match against Magnus, that was the main thing.”
It just went well in the match against Magnus, that was the main thing.
—Fabiano Caruana
On the previous day, Caruana had better-or-winning positions against Carlsen but scored only one draw from both games. This was payback, and Carlsen admitted as much: “Fabi could’ve beaten me twice yesterday and he very deservedly beat me twice today, so I cannot complain about that much. I can only be happy that I managed to swindle a couple of other wins.”
Caruana went for the Berlin endgame with the white pieces, and explained later that Carlsen had trouble against it many years ago and didn’t often go for it anymore. The American was critical of 14…h4?! and backed up his opinion in the game, ultimately using his kingside pawn majority as a battering ram for an attack.
Game two was less clean by the computer’s standards, but was full of intrigue and excitement from the human perspective. Caruana sacrificed an exchange on a8 and Carlsen opted for the provocative, Bongcloud-like 10.Ke2?, rather than blocking the check with the more sane (and equal) 10.Nd2 or 10.Bd2. When it came to attacking a king in the center of the board, Caruana showed just how it’s done, and later converted the endgame (with a few hiccups along the way).
GM Rafael Leitao presents the analysis for the Game of the Day.
After that, Caruana won game one and drew game two against Gukesh to finish the day. The last move, 36…Rxg2!!, was the highlight of that win, as Caruana sacrificed a piece knowing his a-pawn was unstoppable.
Carlsen, who leads the tournament, was not so satisfied with his play. All six of his games were decisive (four wins, two losses), and he said it was “better than yesterday, but I mean I would like to have a little bit more control in my games than I did today, but you know, I’ll take the result of course.”
I would like to have a little bit more control in my games than I did today.
—Magnus Carlsen
Carlsen called his first win against Gukesh “the only good game that I played in this tournament.” The critical mistake, as pointed out by the world champion himself, was 27…e5?. Gukesh said, “I should have stayed patient” with …h5 first, and called his mistake “an impulsive move.”
Carlsen punished it with surgical precision, and converted an instructive endgame with the bishop pair.
The end of game two against Gukesh, which Carlsen also won, was much more complicated. Carlsen had to assess a king and pawn endgame that GM Yasser Seirawan, at first glance, thought was drawn.
It wasn’t, and Carlsen proved in the game that Gukesh should not have allowed the trade of rooks—even if Carlsen himself wasn’t flawless in the conversion. Gukesh pointed out that 24.Rd7, instead, would have been an easy defense for him.
After losing twice against Caruana, Carlsen finished the day with two wins against Nakamura. He didn’t think highly of the quality and said, “I could sense at a certain point that he wasn’t feeling it, so I was just hoping to outlast him in those games.” Game one was the more convincing, where Nakamura may have underestimated just how fast that c-pawn would run after the queen trade.
We are left with one more day, and on the last day three points are awarded to every win. Interestingly, draws are still going to be worth just one point, making them not much better than a loss. Speaking about the format, Caruana said, “I just don’t see the point of draws in this tournament… it’s better to win one, lose one, than to make two draws, by far.”
… it’s better to win one, lose one, than to make two draws, by far.
—Fabiano Caruana
Even though 4.5 points separate the last two players from Carlsen, that could really be just a difference of two games. We can expect to see giant swings, as we did on day two. Will Carlsen stay on top?
Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown, taking place from October 27-30 in St. Louis, is a rapid event featuring the world’s top-three players and World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju. It is a nine-round, 18-game tournament consisting of three double round-robins played with time control of 10+5. Players progressively earn more points in each round-robin; one point for a win in round-robin one, two in round-robin two, and three in round-robin three. The prize fund is $412,000.
