Chess World Cup: Gukesh falters against Carlsen's endgame magic

The Indian teenager, playing white, suffers a 48-move loss versus the world No. 1 in the first classical game

- Ashish Magotra

NEW DELHI: They'll tell you that D Gukesh lost to world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen in the first leg of the Chess World Cup quarterfinal at Baku, Azerbaijan. They'll tell you that the Norwegian showed he is levels above the 17-year-old Indian. They'll tell you that the endgame went exactly as expected.

What they won't tell you is that Gukesh, whose live ELO rating is 2757.2, hardly put a foot wrong against Carlsen (Elo rating 2844) and still lost.

So, how exactly did that happen? To begin with, Gukesh sprang a surprise by opening with the London system. He doesn't usually play it but to bring it out against Carlsen also struck one as odd because he is one of the main proponents of the London.

Still, it seemed to serve its purpose and Carlsen took his time playing his early moves. Gukesh was blitzing through them confident of his preparation and built a big pawn center early.

The question on the minds of all those following the game was essentially simple: how deep was Gukesh's preparation? Carlsen would know the main lines, having played the system so often. And unless Gukesh had something up his sleeve, the 32-year-old would eventually catch up.