Three losses, one draw: New challenge confronts Gukesh

The leg was shaking ina nervous frenzy, deep breaths were being taken, the fingers were going through his hair, the neck was being massaged but reigning world champion D Gukesh knew that he had blundered to his third defeat in a row at the Grand Swiss chess tournament on Thursday.

- HT Correspondent

A day later he was held to a 102-move draw by Divya Deshmukh. The drawn-out endgame saw the world champion (Elo rating 2767) fail to get a decisive advantage over his 2478-rated ‘opponent.

There are times when you don’t quite know what is happening. You keep trying your best but the results just don’t come your way. It happens to the best. It happens to world champions too.

On Thursday, when he finally extended his arm to shake hands and resign, he raised his eyebrows as if to say that we'll get past this too. But Friday showed that he wasn't there yet. The loss against Turkiye’s 16-year-old Ediz Gurel (2631) will hurt the 2767 rated Indian GM as will the draw against Deshmukh.

Gurel is a couple of months older than Abhimanyu Mishra (the 26ll-rated player who Gukesh lost to in the second round), so no new record for the youngest player to beat a world champion was set but the loss cost more rating points and sees Gukesh on the brink of falling out of the top 10.