World Champion D Gukesh beat World no.1 Magnus Carlsen for the first time in Classical chess with a stunning endgame turnaround to close in on the leaders, and have a genuine chance of winning the tournament with four rounds left to play.
It’s very rare to see Carlsen losing games of classical chess. And even more so to see him lose games through one blunder from a winning position. Both of those things happened in this game. In a time scramble, Carlsen just made an error in judgement, and then the pawn race for promotion favoured Gukesh, who won his second classical game of the tournament, after earlier beating Hikaru Nakamura. Carlsen hit the table in frustration after the loss, and then proceeded to pat Gukesh on the back, as the Indian was still coming to terms with what he had achieved.
“It was a completely lost game. 99 times out of 100, I would have lost this game, just a lucky day,” Gukesh said after the win.
Meanwhile, Arjun Erigaisi also won, but in Armageddon against Wei Yi, as he picked up 1.5 more points.
