Three days after staving off the spirited challenge of the 14-year-old Turkish phenom, Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, Gukesh Dommaraju, the youngest world champion in chess history, succumbed to defeat to Abhimanyu Mishra in the fifth round of the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament in Samarkand. The Indian-origin American chess player, who is already in the record books as the youngest player to become a grandmaster in chess history, now has another claim: at the age of 16, he is now the youngest player in history to ever defeat a reigning world champion in a classical game.
In a remarkable game played out in Uzbekistan, Gukesh was forced to fire-fight for his life from the 13th move onwards after a puzzling decision to push his g pawn to g4 which was to be the start of his troubles. In the middle game, by the 20th move, it seemed like the 19-year-old from Chennai had managed to pull off one of his trademark rescue acts. But Gukesh was in trouble once again by move 37 against Mishra, and despite trying hard to get out of jail like he has done on numerous occasions in the past year, Gukesh was not able to avoid a resignation on the 61st move.
World champion Gukesh Dommaraju looks on as Abhimanyu Mishra contemplates his next move in the fifth round of the Grand Swiss chess tournament in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. (PHOTO: FIDE via Michal Walusza)
Abhimanyu Mishra’s rise
The victory over Gukesh came just one day after Mishra had frustrated Praggnanandhaa, another member of India’s golden prodigal generation, despite being a pawn down before directing the game to a peaceful draw. It’s likely that on Tuesday, Mishra is drawn to play the third member of India’s golden gen, Arjun Erigaisi.
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, though, said he was not entirely pleased by his victory over Gukesh.
“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 told FIDE in an interview after his win. “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.”
Indian-origin American grandmaster Abhimanyu Mishra in the game against world champion Gukesh. (PHOTO: FIDE via Michal Walusza)
With players like Mishra and Erdogmus, the FIDE Grand Swiss has given the chess world a glimpse of the next gen of stars who will soon start challenging the current era of prodigies like Gukesh, Arjun, Pragg and Nodirbek Abdusattorov.
Even by the usual standards of chess, where young prodigies are constantly becoming elite players at younger and younger ages every passing year, Mishra is an outlier. The story goes that he was taught the sport by his father before he was even three years old. While he grew up in New Jersey, his early career was shaped by Indian grandmasters like Magesh Chandran (India’s 12th grandmaster) and Arun Prasad Subramanian (India’s 18th grandmaster).
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How Gukesh lost to Abhimanyu Mishra
Playing with black pieces, Gukesh’s decision to play 12…g4 in the game against Mishra left even a legend like Judit Polgar baffled. She spent a considerable amount of time on the commentary wondering out aloud what the world champion was thinking.
INTERACTIVE: Gukesh vs Abhimanyu Mishra
“What I am surprised by is that if playing g4 is a mistake, then how is it possible that Gukesh played it? It has to be part of his opening prep. That’s why it’s very confusing,” Polgar said on the Chess.com livestream. “I would very much like to know what’s going on in Gukesh’s head. From one point of view, it must be home prep. At the same time it seems like it’s a very risky one. It’s very controversial to see what’s happening and seeing the evaluation of the board. It’s really, really surprising that Gukesh did not play 12.h4, which was the best move, and went for g4. Maybe there are some only moves after this one, which are not human moves. So they’re not obvious at all.”
I would very much like to know what’s going on in Gukesh’s head. From one point of view, it must be home prep. At the same time it seems like it’s a very risky one. It’s very controversial to see what’s happening
Just two moves after the pawn push from Gukesh, Mishra had managed to sneak one of his own pawns on the seventh rank — one rank from promotion, which meant that Gukesh would have to spend the rest of the game mulling how to neutralise the pawn and keeping a major piece occupied as sentry to prevent it from reaching the eighth rank. While Gukesh was a knight up at one stage, he was four pawns down.
And just when he thought that the dark clouds of woe had passed over his pieces by the 20th move, a couple of reckless hops with his knight handed Mishra the advantage again. This time, he did not falter, finding one good move after another until the world champion resigned.
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Abhimanyu Mishra [ELO: 2611] vs Gukesh D [ELO: 2767]
[Opening: Italian Game: Giuoco Pianissimo, Normal]
The final board position of the Round 5 game between world champion Gukesh Dommaraju and Abhimanyu Mishra at the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament. (Photo courtesy: Lichess)1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d3 Nf6 5. Bg5 h6 6. Bh4 a6 7. O-O d6 8. c3 Ba7 9. Nbd2 g5 10. Bg3 Nh7 11. d4 h5
12. dxe5?! {Inaccuracy. h4 was best}
12… g4?? {Blunder. h4 was best}
13. exd6 gxf3 14. dxc7 Qe7 15. Nxf3 Bg4 16. h3 Be6 17. Bd6 Qd7 18. Bxe6 Qxe6 19. e5 Kd7
20. Nd4?? {Blunder. Kh1 was best}
20… Bxd4 21. cxd4 Qd5 22. Qxh5 Nf6 23. Qf5+ Qe6 24. Qxe6+ fxe6 25. f4 Nd5 26. f5 exf5 27. Rxf5 Nxd4 28. Rf7+ Ke6 29. Raf1 Rhg8 30. g4 Nb5 31. Rh7
31…Rg6? {Mistake. Rh8 was best}
32. Rff7? {Mistake. Rd1 was best}
32… Rc8 33. Rd7 Rh6 34. Rhg7 Rxh3 35. a4 Nd4 36. Bc5
36… Ne2+?? {Blunder. Rd3 was best}
37. Kf1
37… Nef4? {Mistake. Rxc7 was best}
38. Bd4 Rf3+ 39. Ke1 Nd3+ 40. Kd2 Nxe5 41. Bxe5 Kxe5 42. Rg5+ Ke6 43. Rgxd5 Rb3 44. R7d6+ Ke7 45. Rd7+ Ke6 46. R5d6+ Ke5 47. Rd3 Rxb2+ 48. Kc1 Rh2 49. g5 Kf5 50. R3d5+ Ke6 51. R5d6+ Ke5 52. Rd2 Rh1+ 53. Kb2 Kf5 54. Rg7 Rhh8 55. Rf2+ Ke5 56. g6 Rh4 57. Rgf7 b5 58. axb5 axb5 59. g7 Rb4+ 60. Kc3 Rc4+ 61. Kb3Abhimanyu Mishra wins vs Gukesh D
World champion Gukesh Dommaraju walks in the playing hall during his round 5 game against Abhimanyu Mishra at the FIDE Grand Swiss chess tournament in Samarkand. (PHOTO: FIDE via Michal Walusza)
Pragg, Divya lose, Arjun wins
Gukesh was not the only one from India to suffer defeat on Monday. Pragg lost to German grandmaster Matthias Bluebaum, who is rated more than 100 ELO points below him. Divya Deshmukh and Vantika Agrawal also endured defeats.
While Gukesh and Pragg both lost, Arjun Erigaisi managed to defeat British grandmaster Nikita Vitiugov to stay within touching distance of the top of the leaderboard with the half-way stage of the tournament in sight. The day saw most of the other Indian players draw their games. This included the two defending champions Vaishali Rameshbabu and Vidit Gujrathi besides players like Harika Dronavalli, Leon Luke Mendonca, Nihal Sarin, Harikrishna Pentala, Raunak Sadhwani, Aditya Mittal and SL Narayanan.
