3 min readMumbaiUpdated: Mar 8, 2026 12:16 PM IST
World Champion D Gukesh’s wretched fortnight at Czech Republic ended with a consolatory victory over Spanish grandmaster David Anton on Friday night. In nine rounds at the Prague International Chess Festival, the win over Anton was the only time the 19-year-old from India experienced a victory with three of his games ending in defeats and five others being draws.
While Gukesh ended joint last in the 10-player standings at Prague, compatriot Aravindh Chitambaram ended joint second. Aravindh was the defending champion coming into the event, but saw his title taken by Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who’s gone on a tear in recent events, winning titles in London and Wijk aan Zee before the Prague event.
In the Challengers section, Divya Deshmukh, who used the event to sharpen her campaign for the upcoming Women’s Candidates later this month, ended third in the standings with a rating gain of 13. In contrast to Gukesh’s campaign, Divya lost just once (to fellow Candidates contender Zhu Jiner) over nine boards while winning twice. Divya’s tournament was remarkable because seven of the 10 players in the Challengers were rated higher than her. At Prague, Divya continued her trend of playing in events where both male and female players were competing rather than just restricted to female players.
Zhu, who is considered the flagbearer of women’s chess in China, ended last in the Challengers event, which could be a byproduct of a player who is saving her best prep for the Candidates in three weeks’ time.
ALSO READ | Another defeat for D Gukesh at Prague, this time to Aravindh, leaves him down at World No 20 spot
Last year, Gukesh played non-stop in at least 16 over the board events, including exhibition ones like the Checkmate: USA vs India event in Arlington. Now, after two under-par events in 2026, Gukesh indicated that he would take it easy on playing in events. He had already pulled out of the season-starting Tata Steel India Rapid and Blitz event in Kolkata.
When asked by Chessbase India in an interview after his final round where he will play next, Gukesh said: “Right now, I’m just going back home. We’ll see later.”
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The year is one of the most crucial ones for Gukesh, who will defend his world championship title at the end of the year. He has committed to playing in the Norway Chess event from May 25-June 5 in Oslo. But other than that, little about his calendar is known.
Gukesh admitted that the results in Prague had given him much to ponder.
“Basically I didn’t care about the last round. It’s good that I played a nice game. Obviously most of it (what I am feeling right now) is disappointment about the event,” Gukesh told Chessbase India. “Obviously, with this performance, you cannot be happy but it gives me some things to think about.”
Over the course of the nine rounds, Gukesh lost 16 rating points and was at World No 15 in the real-time rankings. Gukesh’s current rating of 2732 is far below his peak rating of 2794 which he achieved in October 2024, right after leading the Indian chess team to an Olympiad gold.
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