Since becoming the world champion in December 2024, D Gukesh has been under plenty of pressure. Opponents are more motivated to face him than they usually are, and his form has also dipped. Now the Indian GM has fallen to world No. 20 in the live chess rankings after his recent defeat to Aravindh Chithambaram.
Gukesh resigned in his sixth-round game against Aravindh, and the defeat saw his ranking fall further, and he also fell to last place in the Prague International Chess Festival. After six rounds, the 19-year-old has lost three games, drawn the other three. The poor performance has cost him 19 rating points.
Against his countryman on Tuesday, Gukesh once again made a huge late blunder. He had to make five moves from his 35th to 40th, with only seconds left on his clock. The engine was on Aravindh’s side, but Gukesh also had a rook and a pawn more on the board, in contrast to his opponent’s two knights.
But the reigning world champion allowed Aravindh’s knights and his rook to lie on the e file, making things hard for his king on h2. His blunder came on move 40, just before he and Aravindh got an additional 30 minutes on their clocks.
Speaking after the game, Aravindh said, “Probably f4 (37. f4) was the crucial mistake because it allowed my knight to jump on like e3 and e2 squares. Maybe if he had played rook d2 instead of f4 like I guess the game would have ended in a draw.”
“One of the crucial factors today, I believe, was the time situation. He (Gukesh) was actually getting low on time and with two knights on the board, it actually can get tricky like it happened in the game. So I wanted to not let him find a direct way to equalize the position. Time actually played a crucial factor.
“If he had time I think he would have definitely found rook d3 (on move 40, where Gukesh blundered the game away by playing 40.Rgf3). Rook to d3 was the only move he could have made (to save the game).”
“It was a hard game for both of us. Coming into the game, both of us were having a bad tournament. It was very hard to actually play this game, but I’m happy that I broke my losing streak and managed to win a single game,” he further added.
