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Gukesh finds positives despite World Cup chess elimination
India’s young classical world champion lost to Germany’s Frederik Svane while five Indians moved into Round 4 in Goa
Mumbai: At this time last year, D Gukesh was preparing for the biggest tournament of his young career – the World Chess Championship. And then, at 18, he became the youngest-ever player to be crowned world champion.
In the year that has followed, the 19-year-old’s stock has risen, even if the results have not quite gone his way. On Saturday, at the Chess World Cup in Goa, Gukesh had to take another defeat in his stride.
On the second day of Round 3, despite the advantage of playing with white pieces and facing an opponent who was under time pressure, Gukesh lost against Frederik Svane. On Friday, Gukesh had played out a draw against the German.
On paper, it may seem like the alarm bells should be ringing for the boy wonder who has been attracting crowds in Goa. But the world No.9 is looking to use every loss as a learning experience.
“It’s been an interesting experience,” he had said in an interview with FIDE earlier in the week, about his year as world champion. “The results have not been great this year. But recently, I’ve started to pick up form. It’s a great learning experience.”
And there certainly is a lot to learn from a defeat at the Chess World Cup. The fact that the competition uses a knockout format – a rarity on the chess tour – makes the event even more difficult for players. After all, the great Magnus Carlsen became world champion five times and was ranked world No.1 for more than a decade before he finally managed to win the World Cup, in the last edition in 2023.
The player Carlsen beat in that final, R Praggnanandhaa, continued his progress in Goa.
The 20-year-old world No.7 was the only Indian player to win a match on Saturday. Playing with white pieces, he beat Armenian GM Robert Hovhannisyan. Joining Praggnanandhaa in the fourth round are Arjun Erigaisi, Pranav V, Pentala Harikrishna and Karthik Venkataraman.
The quartet had picked up wins on Day 1 of the third round, and held on for draws on Saturday to secure their progress.
Erigaisi, world No.6 and the highest ranked Indian in the fray, played a 51-move draw against Uzbek GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov. Reigning junior world champion Pranav drew against Lithuania’s Titas Stremavicius a day after picking up a win in the first of two classical games.
Harikrishna got past Dardha Daniel of Belgium with a draw, a day after beating him in the first classical game. Karthik ensured there would be at least five Indians in the fourth round, after holding on to draw against Deac Bogdan-Daniel of Romania.
Two more Indian players can still move into the fourth round, but will need to get the better of their opponents in the tiebreakers scheduled for Sunday.
Narayan S drew both his classical matches against China’s Yu Yangyi, as did Vidit Gujrathi against American GM Sam Shankland.
Gukesh was not the only Indian to be eliminated from the competition on Saturday.
Pranesh M, playing with white, was handed a defeat by Germany’s Vincent Keymer. Diptayan Ghosh, who earlier in the week stunned two-time Candidates winner Ian Nepomniachtchi, lost to Armenia’s Gabriel Sargissian.
