Gukesh Dommaraju, the youngest world champion in chess history, endured a shocking loss to 16-year-old Indian-origin American chess player Abhimanyu Mishra at the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The fifth round loss also saw Mishra become the youngest player to defeat a reigning world champion in classical chess.
The outcome comes three days after 14-year-old Yagiz Khan Erdogmus of Turkey had held Gukesh to a draw in the second round.
As reported by the Indian Express, the intense action between Gukesh and Mishra saw as many as 16 grandmasters take a break and watch the action unfold on this chess board.
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Trouble began early for Gukesh, as he had to take the defensive route from move 13 onwards. The act started after Gukesh moved his g pawn to g4. By the 20th move, it appeared Gukesh would pull a sensational rescue act, however, it wasn't the case. Things appeared settled for a bit but by the 37th trouble began again for Gukesh and led to resignation on the 61st move.
“Even though I won, it doesn’t feel as pleasing as my previous games in the tournament. It wasn’t a very clean game,” Mishra was quoted by the report as saying to FIDE after his victory.
“But the tournament is going better than I could have possibly imagined. If I keep up this form I have a very real chance of winning the tournament. Yesterday too, I made some errors against Pragg. But I never felt like I was inferior to these players (Gukesh and Pragg). I think I am at par with them,” he added.
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Other Indian results
It was not just Gukesh, who endured defeat, but a host of other players from the country experienced a similar fate. R Praggnanandhaa lost to German grandmaster Matthias Bluebaum, who is rated more than 100 ELO points below him. Divya Deshmukh and Vantika Agrawal also experienced similar outcomes.
Arjun Erigaisi did bring some cheers among the Indian chess community as he defeated British grandmaster Nikita Vitiugov. The victory allowed Erigaisi to remain in touching distance of the top of the leaderboard as we are almost at the half-way stage of the tournament.
Meanwhile, the day also witnessed plenty of draws, which included Vaishali Rameshbabu, Vidit Gujrathi, Harika Dronavalli, Leon Luke Mendonca, Nihal Sarin, Harikrishna Pentala, Raunak Sadhwani, Aditya Mittal and SL Narayanan.
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