For the second day in a row, Gukesh Dommaraju endured defeat at the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee after the world champion resigned in 37 moves to Anish Giri, the Dutch grandmaster who is one of the favourites to meet the Indian teenager in the World Championship battle at the end of the year. Meanwhile, R Praggnanandhaa’s winless run at the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee continued in the seventh round on Saturday after he played out a draw against French grandmaster Matthias Bluebaum, who the Indian prodigy will face in the Candidates in just over two months.
Gukesh had endured one of the most painful defeats of his career on Friday against Nodirbek Abdusattorov with a one-move blunder that led him to resign quickly. That defeat was so gut-wrenching for the teenage world champion that he had spent almost five minutes with his face buried in his palms unable to come to terms with the nature of the blunder. He had then walked into the media room at the venue and spent almost 15 minutes standing in a corner by a coat rack just with his head bowed and his face turned away from the world.
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“I feel very sorry for him. It’s a terrible feeling. I’ve done it myself many times. So it’s an absolutely horrible feeling,” a sympathetic Abdusattorov had said in the interview after his win over Gukesh before calling the blunder ‘unexplainable’.
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The blunder and the defeat to Abdusattorov was the sort that is hard to recover from, as was evidenced against Giri. Gukesh also had another blunder against Giri—pushing his queen to d6 instead of d5—but this time around, the blunder was not the kind that resulted in a quick resignation.
Until he faced Gukesh, Giri was having a forgettable tournament, losing two games and drawing his remaining four rounds. But he racked up his first victory of the Wijk aan Zee tournament on Saturday against Gukesh.
Meanwhile, Pragg’s winless run at Wijk continued. After a superlative 2025, Pragg had started off his campaign to defend his title at Tata Steel Chess with two successive defeats against Arjun Erigaisi and Nodirbek Abdusattorov. He’s since then stabilised his form with five draws in a row. Saturday’s draw against Bluebaum came in just 33 moves after a threefold repetition.
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But unlike his other draws, against Bluebaum, Pragg played some ol’-fashioned romantic chess where he sacrificed his rook as early as the 19th move as he focussed his attention on mounting a full-fledged attack on the Frenchman’s king on the kingside.
Bluebaum was struggling on the clock as early as the 17th move after spending nearly 50 minutes on a single move. But in the end, Pragg opted to play out a draw.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
