The 18-year-old Indian world champion was losing his first-round game in the Netherlands but his Dutch opponent, Anish Giri, blundered fatally when short of time. Gukesh Dommaraju played and won his first competitive game as world champion last weekend, but only after surviving a close brush with disaster. The 18-year-old Indian, who captured the crown last month from China’s Ding Liren, defeated Anish Giri in the opening round of Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, the “chess Wimbledon”, after the Netherlands No 1 failed to spot the winning tactic featured in this week’s puzzle.
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Gukesh arrived in Amsterdam on an overnight flight at 9am, with the game starting five hours later. He was delayed by attending a ceremony where India’s President, Droupadi Murmu, presented him with the nation’s highest sporting honour, the Khel Ratna award, which includes a $29,000 prize. The award has previously been won by India’s first world chess champion, Vishy Anand, as well as by the cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli.
Most grandmasters would settle for an early draw in such circumstances, but Gukesh opted to complicate with an early sacrifice of a knight for two pawns. Later, both players became acutely short of time, and at the critical moment Giri missed his opportunity in the puzzle diagram.
After Wednesday’s fifth round (of 13), Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan) and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu (India) led on 4/5, half a point ahead of Vladimir Fedoseev (Slovenia) and Gukesh, who ground out a six-hour endgame win against his former aide Vincent Keymer (Germany).
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