Aimchess Rapid Online Tournament: After Arjun Erigaisi, Gukesh stuns world champion Magnus Carlsen

Add as a preferred source on Google

Bengaluru, October 18: Less than 24 hours after Arjun Erigiasi stunned Magnus Carlsen, teenaged Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh shocked the Norwegian world champion in the $150,000 Aimchess Rapid Online tournament.

In the process, the 16-year-old became the youngest Indian GM and the second behind Viswanathan Anand in classical rankings, to beat Carlsen after he had become the world champion in 2013.

The Aimchess Rapid Online Tournament is part of the Meltwater Champions tour and features 16 players including five from India.

After the 15-round preliminaries, the top eight qualify for the knockouts.

The Chennai lad beat the world No.1 in 29 moves with white pieces to move up to third position behind Poland's Jan-Krzystof Duda (25 points) and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan, 23 points) with 21 points after the 12th round.

"Gukesh just became the youngest player to ever beat Magnus after he became WC! Hats off to the 16-Year-Old Indian superstar," Meltwater Champions Chess Tour of which the Aimchess Rapid event is a part of, said on its Twitter feed.

Gukesh also broke R Praggnanandhaa's record.

Praggnanandhaa was just 16 years, six months and 10 days when he beat Carlsen in the Airthing Masters.

On Monday (October 17), Gukesh surpassed that record at 16 years, four months and 20 days.

"Beating Magnus is always special, but I wasn't very proud of that game. As a professional, I'm happy with the way I played the game. The win surely plays a vital role in boosting my confidence and I look forward to further games," Gukesh was quoted as saying by the PTI news agency after his historic victory.

Terming it an important win, the Chennai player said playing Carlsen was always an interesting challenge, and that he looked forward to playing against him in the near future.

"It's definitely an important win. Playing with Carlsen is always an interesting challenge and I look forward to playing with him again in the near future," he added.

Asked if there was any special preparation for the match against Carlsen, the Indian GM said, "I had a discussion with my coach, Vishnu Prasanna about the playing styles of all the players in the event. We made a brief plan about what to play against each participant as per their playing style."

Subsequently, Gukesh suffered a setback in round 10 when he lost to Duda but bounced back superbly to beat Mamedyarova and Eric Hansen in the next two rounds.

Arjun has as many points (21) as Gukesh and is in fourth as the race for the spot in the knockout phase gets closer.

Even as Gukesh and Arjun underlined their talent and scored wins, the other Indians - Vidit Santhosh Gujrathi, Aditya Mittal and P Harikrishna - failed to impress.

Gujrathi lies in 10th spot and out of the qualification range for the knockout with 14 points.

Mittal (12 points) is in 12th place while Harikrishna is 15th after 12 rounds of play and is out of contention to reach the quarterfinals.

Meanwhile, Carlsen is in fifth spot after having a quiet day. After losing to Gukesh, he drew against Harikrishna and world rapid champion Nodirkbek Abdusattorov and ended with a win over Daniel Naroditsky.