World champion D Gukesh won a historic victory over Magnus Carlsen in Round 6 of the Norway Chess Tournament by taking advantage of a rare mistake from the world number one to beat him for the first time in a classical game.
The dramatic win left Carlsen clearly upset, with him banging his fist on the table in anger at the end of the four-hour battle.
The win propelled 19-year-old Gukesh to third position on the board with 8.5 points behind leaders Carlsen and American Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana by just a point.
"There wasn't much that I could do. It was just clearly lost (his position).Fortunately he (Carlsen) got into a time scramble," said the normally unflappable Chennai-born prodigy after the game.
Looking back on the result, Gukesh further said, "First classical victory against Magnus, not the way I wanted (or) expected it to be but I will take it. I was just trying to play moves (today) which sort of were tricky for him."
".99 out of 100 times I would lose… just a lucky day," he conceded later in an interview with the broadcast team of the tournament.
Carlsen seemed to dominate the game for most of the match, his stylistic mastery on show. Yet a lone disastrous error handed Gukesh the initiative. Though he saw the mistake, Carlsen couldn't salvage the situation in time. His response—slamming his fist on the table and disrupting the pieces—betrayed the extent of his rage.
As the game finished, Carlsen extended a handshake to Gukesh, his expression revealing a mix of disappointment and shock. He reset the dislodged pieces on the board and patting the young Indian lightly on the back, departed the table. Gukesh, however, unperturbed, closed his eyes for a moment, soaking in the drama of the moment.
This was followed by Gukesh having endured a hard defeat to Carlsen in the first round—an event that had raised questions about whether or not he was going to recover against the Norwegian giant.
Elsewhere in the tournament, Arjun Erigaisi beat China's Wei Yi in the Armageddon tie-breaker, alongside Hikaru Nakamura on joint fourth with 7.5 points. The tournament is still very competitive, with all six contenders still in the hunt for the highly prized title.
Carlsen's Time Management Costs Him Dear
Carlsen was playing black in this game and appeared to be heading for another monotonous victory. Gukesh held water, though, resisting pressure through a sequence of fighting moves.
Finally, Carlsen committed a decisive error, losing his knight—a point Gukesh did not allow to go by, grabbing the chance to clinch the match.
"One lesson I learned from this tournament is time scrambles can get out of hand," Gukesh said, emphasizing the role of the clock.
On his earlier loss during Round 1, he replied, "I don't know, I'm still a bit shaken by that game. I don't know what happened, essentially. There was not much I could do; it was obviously lost."
Gukesh's coach, Polish Grandmaster Grzegorz Gajewski, stressed the psychological value of the victory.
"It's going to give him a confidence bump. Because once you've done it, you know you can do it again. And that's the plan," said Gajewski.
He also referred to improvement in time management, which was a problem for Gukesh in the game against Carlsen.
"After the initial game (lost by Gukesh to Carlsen), we observed that the most critical issue was time management, and due to the time trouble, he ended up losing the position he shouldn't have lost," Gajewski explained. "So, we decided that we had to rectify this time management, and already in the game with Hikaru (Nakamura), we could see this improvement and progress."
Women's Section: Vaishali Defeats Humpy
In the women's event, R Vaishali beat fellow Indian Grandmaster Koneru Humpy in an Armageddon decider, making it an even more dramatic day.
Round 6 Results:
Open Section:
D Gukesh (India – 8.5) defeated Magnus Carlsen (Norway – 9.5)
Arjun Erigaisi (India – 7.5) defeated Wei Yi (China – 6.5) through Armageddon
Fabiano Caruana (USA – 9.5) defeated Hikaru Nakamura (USA – 7.5) through Armageddon
Women's Section
R Vaishali (India – 8) defeated Koneru Humpy (India – 9.5) through Armageddon
Ju Wenjun (China – 8.5) defeated Lei Tingjie (China – 6) through Armageddon
Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine – 9.5) defeated Sara Khadem (Spain – 6) through Armageddon
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