Stavanger: Moments after D Gukesh pulled off a stunning heist on Magnus Carlsen at Norway Chess on Sunday, his coach Grzegorz Gajewski was asked what it would mean to the Indian for the remainder of the tournament.
“Well,” Gajewski said, “hopefully we can break another unbreakable Arjun.”
The world champion sure did. In similar style to boot, albeit not nearly as startlingly. Gukesh beat Arjun Erigaisi in Round 7 of Norway Chess to earn his first classic victory over his compatriot who, as Gajewski described, is a “very unpleasant opponent” for the world champion.
In scripting back-to-back firsts against Carlsen and Erigaisi, the 19-year-old also flipped the script on the two men who had dragged him to defeats in his first two games, raising more questions about Gukesh’s form and confidence.
Accepting a big bar of chocolate from a fan after his win on Tuesday night seemed appropriate, the sour beginning has indeed sweetened.
Gukesh’s position in both the victories however was anything but sweet. The great escape against the world No.1 was almost surreal, and Gukesh arrived for his clash against Erigaisi after all the other games had begun.
After his belated first move “nothing went my way”, Gukesh summed up later. Digging into a weak position, Gukesh hung on until Erigaisi let the advantage slip. And then in the endgame littered with mistakes, Gukesh sprang up.
“I was just losing at some point, was slowly getting outplayed,” Gukesh said. “But once I got to this position, I had to keep making moves that don’t lose on the spot. Then in the time scramble, things happen.”
They sure have for him in this coastal city because Gukesh has, even in extreme adversity in the last two games, refused to throw in the towel. The fighter in him has the shades of a younger Norwegian.
A young Magnus, as Gajewski recalled speaking to Indian media here, “kept playing those little bit better positions” in testing situations. “I don’t even experience him (Carlsen) having so many lost positions that he kept fighting in, but he was definitely a fighter,” he said.
Gukesh has shown similar qualities, certainly in his last couple of games where he has demanded precision from his opponent in converting a winning position to a win. “And if you’re not up to it, you might mess up the position. Even if you’re No.1 in the world,” Gajewski said.
Those two traits combined have defined Gukesh’s resurgence over the last couple of days. For Gajewski, the fighting spirit isn’t the most extraordinary aspect of it.
“In the sense, everyone here is a fighter,” he said. “Simply, Gukesh has extraordinary calculation abilities, which, combined with his fighting spirit, help him defend so many positions.”
The two games have, in a way, been a microcosm of Gukesh’s time in Stavanger so far. As the world champion coming in with form under a cloud, the opening two defeats had made things gloomier for Gukesh. He found some light when he beat Hikaru Nakamura in classical and Fabiano Caruana in armageddon before the last two wins brightened his place in the leaderboard to second (1 point behind Caruana, 0.5 above Carlsen) from down among the last.
What got him up, ironically, was a release of pressure after a stressful start.
“Your hopes kind of go down, your adrenalin goes down. And you feel relaxed, because all your tension is suddenly gone. It’s like you’re already lost,” Gajewski said. “And then, the next games are much easier because you don’t feel the pressure you felt in the beginning.”
Gukesh, make no mistake, did feel the pressure, even more so after “an unsuccessful tournament in Bucharest”, as the Polish GM said. The coach doesn’t wish to read too much into Gukesh’s recent results in freestyle events, but last month’s Superbet Classic where Gukesh finished one point above the bottom place was a “difficult” outcome that jumbled his mind.
The slow start here could’ve further complicated the puzzling thoughts. But, unlike the Stavanger weather, Gukesh ensured things cleared up in time. “That’s a very big success, regardless of how the tournament ends,” Gajewski said.
“This is a very nice thing to achieve for him because from now in every tournament, if he starts badly, he will know that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad tournament.”
