Just one week ago, right after Magnus Carlsen had forced the youngest world champion in chess history, Gukesh, to resign in the opening round of Norway Chess, he had posted a tweet using a reference from the HBO show The Wire: “You come at the king, you best not miss.” In the second time of asking, in the early hours of Monday at the same event in Stavanger, Gukesh did just that. The 19-year-old notched up his first victory over the world no 1 after 62 moves.
“Oh my God!” bellowed a livid Magnus Carlsen as he looked away from the chess board and his opponent, the 19-year-old Gukesh, who had just defeated the Norwegian for the first time in a classical chess contest. Just seconds before that moment, Carlsen, one of the greatest chess players in history, had slammed a balled fist on the chess board with such brute force that a seismic tremor had gone through the board toppling over pieces. Some of the pieces had remained standing. One of them was Gukesh’s king.
Carlsen apologized to Gukesh — twice — for the emotional outburst, which was uncharacteristic for a chess game, and then, as he power-walked his way out of the playing hall after signing his score sheet and banging the black king erect in the middle of the board, he patted the Indian teenager on his back, a gesture that requires no translation universally. Carlsen’s anger was understandable. He was looking like he was going to win for plenty of the game. Then, like the Stavanger weather, in the blink of an eye, everything changed. Dramatically.
As chess legend Susan Polgar pointed out, “Carlsen outplayed Gukesh, but made massive blunder to lose a winning game! This is the biggest shock of the year! Carlsen rarely loses in classical chess, and he rarely commits big blunders. But Gukesh did not give up. He continued to fight and Carlsen’s advantage slowly disappeared. Then when both were in time pressure, he made a huge blunder which cost him the game. This has to be one of the most painful losses in his spectacular career. I am sure he is very angry with himself.”
If Carlsen was angry, Gukesh was simply dazed. He got up from the table and walked the other way from Carlsen, palm covering his mouth, disbelief writ large in his eyes. He sat and composed the board after Carlsen had walked out. When he left the playing hall, the Indian teenager was greeted by his father and his long-time coach Grzegorz Gajewski, who received the hardest fist bump that the Pole had ever gotten from the Indian teenager in their two years of working together.
Asked if he was surprised at the way Carlsen had reacted, Gukesh told Chess.com: “No, it was heartbreaking how he lost. I completely understand. I have also banged many tables in my career. A couple of them on camera, a few off camera. But I wasn’t paying too much attention to what he did, I was trying to calm myself down.”
#BREAKING: World champion #Gukesh gets his first win in classical #chess over world no 1 #MagnusCarlsen at #NorwayChess.
Magnus storms off after the loss, banged his hand on the board… pic.twitter.com/WRQF42awmu
— Amit Kamath (@jestalt) June 1, 2025
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It was that sort of an occasion. For the second time in two years at Norway Chess, an Indian teenager has defeated Magnus Carlsen to rack up their first win in the classical format over the man who is the greatest chess player of this generation and, arguably, in history. Last year, it was Praggnanandhaa. This year, the reigning world champion has followed suit.
INTERACTIVE: How Carlsen lost to Gukesh
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History aside, for Gukesh, the win meant even more. “I think this win is going to give Gukesh a bump. First of all, he has never beaten Magnus. Secondly, as a world champion, he keeps facing these comments: ‘You’re the world champion only because Magnus didn’t play. You know, you try not to hear those comments, but then you lose to him, and then you lose to him again, and that’s not a bit pleasant. Now, he’s beaten him. So, I hope this is going to give him some credit and a lot of confidence,” Gajewski told the handful of Indian journalists at the venue in Stavanger.
WATCH: How Carlsen reacted after losing to Gukesh
OH MY GOD 😳🤯😲 pic.twitter.com/QSbbrvQFkE
— Norway Chess (@NorwayChess) June 1, 2025
In one of the interviews he did afterwards, Gukesh said that he was “about to resign” at one point, but had opted to soldier on. It was perseverance that was richly rewarded as Gukesh earned a resignation from the five-time world championship-winning Norwegian after 62 moves.
READ MORE: Meet Bjarte Leer-Helgesen, man who saw Magnus Carlsen take first steps on chess board, then become prison chaplain who played chess with jail inmates
As Gukesh’s coach Gajewski told Indian media in Stavanger: “We have to give Guki credit for his stubbornness and for his resourcefulness because he was lost for so long yet he kept kicking and kicking and the lower the time went, the more chances he had to actually do something. I don’t think his intention was to win it but he actually did it.”
“99 out of 100 times I would lose. Just a lucky day! My first classical win over Magnus (did not come) the way I expected (or) wanted it to be. But I will take it.” Gukesh told Norway’s TV2 immediately after the game. he then admitted: “I’m still kind of shaken from that game. I don’t know what happened, basically. There wasn’t much I could do, the position was clearly lost. I was just trying to make moves which kind of was tricky for him and luckily he got into time scramble. One thing I learned from this tournament was time scrambles can go out of control.”
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With Carlsen ticked off the list, Team Gukesh has set its sights on another first: beating compatriot Arjun Erigaisi in classical chess.
“Hopefully, we can break another unbreakable: Arjun,” said Gajewski.
(The writer is in Norway at the invitation of Norway Chess. Norway Chess matches are streamed live on SonyLiv)
