Stavanger, Norway: Endings in chess are defined by handshakes. Here, the fists had taken over.
Magnus Carlsen banged his right fist on the table holding the board. Such was the fury that it shook the remaining pieces to stumbling submission.
Moments later, D Gukesh walked out of the playing area and delivered a double first bump to his waiting coach. Such was the force that Grzegorz Gajewski felt an unprecedented blow.
“Not that hard,” Gajewski said when asked if Gukesh had ever given him a fist bump so hard. “I mean, he had his reason.”
The reason was that Gukesh, the 19-year-old reigning world champion, had beaten Carlsen, the 34-year-old world No.1, for the first time ever in classical chess in Round 6 of the Norway Chess here on Sunday.
It featured a spectacular meltdown after a typical Magnus Masterclass. It featured every expert’s prediction here of another Carlsen win over Gukesh during the course of the game being thrown out of the window in the end. It featured an eye-popping late blunder and a mind-boggling burst of emotion.
The Norwegian’s incredible physical reaction, which also slightly shook the Indian teen seated across, was immediately backed up by a “sorry”. “Oh my God!” Carlsen yelled while getting up and flapping his right arm. Another “sorry” followed, and then a tap on his opponent’s back before sprinting out of the venue without, for the first time in this tournament, stopping for anybody or anything.
Gukesh, usually stoic, was left stunned. He got up from his chair and began walking, the right hand covering his mouth and eventually the entire face. After walking back and forth for several seconds, he stood still, head down, both hands on the hip as the spectators broke the tension for an applause.
This was your world champion — coming out all grit from a gruelling marathon in which he appeared to be faltering for most part until, somehow, fighting and flinging to the finish line.
“99 out of 100 times, I would lose,” Gukesh told TV2, the official broadcaster. “Just a lucky day.”
“Well, we could say it was lucky,” Gajewski told a group of journalists. “But we have to give a lot of credit to Guki for his stubbornness and for his resourcefulness.”
Gukesh had succumbed to blundering in time pressure in their first meeting at the opening round of the tournament. Five days later playing with white pieces, the Indian was served a clinical Carlsen show that had him staring down the barrel right into the endgame.
Carlsen was expected to close it out but, in a time scramble, it was his turn to unravel this time. Carlsen’s 44…f6 brought the game back in balance, before Gukesh’s 52…Nd7 and Carlsen’s Ne2+ overturned it drastically and dramatically.
In her post on X, chess legend Susan Polgar called it the “biggest shock of the year” and “one of the most painful losses” of Carlsen’s career.
“He (Gukesh) 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,” Gajewski said. “I don’t think his intention was to win it, but he actually did.”
Even as the emotions settled, Gukesh still couldn’t fathom what had happened and how exactly he had pulled it off. A significant barrier, however, had certainly been pushed.
“First classical win over Magnus,” Gukesh told TV2. “Not the way I expected (or) wanted it to be, but I will take it.”
More so given the context and timing. The Indian’s world title high of last December had come with a floating asterix of the five-time world champion missing in action and Gukesh having never beaten Carlsen in the classical form. It carried into the Norway Chess where the Indian lost to Carlsen early and, in an extension of his quiet form since wearing the world champion tag, had just one classical win coming into the reverse rounds.
“It just gives a huge bump of confidence,” Gajewski said of why this win matters, no matter how. “Because once you’ve done it, you know you can do it again. And that’s the plan.”
This is the second time an Indian has beaten Carlsen in consecutive years at Norway Chess. Last year R Praggnanandhaa had defeated the eventual champion, also for the first time in classical chess.
Gukesh has followed suit. It comes as a shot in the arm for the bewildered but bolstered world champion. And with a double fist bump.
