Mahabalipuram, Aug 3: Young India grandmaster Dommaraju Gukesh, popularly known as Gukesh D, has joined an elite list of players with his match-winning performance against legendary Alexei Shirov of Spain in round five in the ongoing Chess Olympiad here.
On Tuesday (August 2), Gukesh - who is part of a young and strong India B team - defeated the former World Championships Challenger in 44 moves with black pieces. Living up to the expectations, the India B team defeated Spain 2.5-1.5 to secure its fifth straight win in the competition and perched at the top of the team standings at the halfway mark.
With his win over Spaniard, Gukesh - who is the third youngest player to qualify as a grandmaster - achieved his fifth win on the trot in the competition and even overtook compatriot Vidit Gujrathi in live ratings to be the third highest-rated player in India after Viswanathan Anand and Pentala Harikrishna. Gukesh (16) now has 2714 ELO points to be the third highest-rated player in India after Anand (2756) and Harikrishna (2724) on live ratings. He is now ranked 27th in the world.
Speaking about his match with a legendary player, Gukesh said, "I got a fine position after an error from him and slowly outplayed him. It's a pleasure to play a player of Shirov's calibre and to beat him is special."
The game was an old Sicilian where Shirov tried an unconventional ninth move. Gukesh was quick on the uptake and started pressing for victory after blunting out Shirov's pieces. His King personally escorted one of his pawns to the queening square with the help of his two rooks, prompting Shirov's resignation on the 44th turn in a position that was beyond repair.
"My strategy was to provoke him and being an aggressive player, he could not resist aggressive moves, ones which I anticipated. There were a lot of checkmating patterns later on in the game," Gukesh added during the post-match presser.
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The young GM isn't letting the achievement get into his head and the Chennai-lad stays grounded for there is still a long way into the tournament. Reacting to his ratings, Gukesh said, "The important thing for me is to keep playing well and not think much about anything else."
Before the start of the tournament, five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen cautioned every team to be wary of the India B team and this side is living up to the hype.
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India B Team's captain and coach RB Ramesh while talking to MyKhel said, "We have these young players like D. Gukesh, R. Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin, Raunak Sadhwani, Arjun Erigaisi. So these five are growing very fast day by day and I'm sure they will be our country's backbone for the next decade."