 "World champion D Gukesh defeated Magnus Carlsen after scripting a comeback from a losing position. Image: Norway Chess")
D Gukesh chose to stay humble after clinching his first-ever classical win over world No.1 Magnus Carlsen in a complete contrast of how the five-time world champion had reacted after beating the Indian Grandmaster last week. Carlsen defeated world champion Gukesh in the first round of Norway Chess 2025 last week and chose to celebrate it with a bold social media post where he announced himself as the ‘king’ of chess .
Gukesh, however, did nothing like that after beating the player, who had in the past criticised the quality of play during the 19-year-old’s World Chess Championship win last year. In all honesty, Gukesh was under the pump throughout the match despite Carlsen having the black pieces and it looked like he would suffer another defeat.
Gukesh: ‘I’m still kind of shaken’ after beating Carlsen
But the Indian chess star relied on his most trusted skills – making the right calculations and not giving up in a fight as he kept delaying the what looked like inevitable, only for the match to enter a time scramble where Carlsen blundered in the end and lost to Gukesh after 62 moves .
“I don’t know, I’m still kind of shaken from that game,” Gukesh told Norway Chess broadcasters TV2. “I don’t know what happened, basically. There wasn’t much I could do, it was clearly lost. I was just trying to make moves which kind of was tricky for him and luckily he got into time scramble. One thing I learned from this tournament was time scrambles can go out of control.”
Gukesh shared he wanted to offer some counterplay with Ng5, however, even that was not of much help. But it was on move 52 that Carlsen made a slight miscalculation — Ne2+ — which helped Gukesh script a winning turnaround from the losing position.
The Chennai chess player acknowledged that he was “lucky” in beating Carlsen but had no qualms in accepting the victory.
“In this endgame, I was trying to get some kind of Ng5. And, luckily, after Kf6 and h4 (39th Carlsen move and Gukesh’s 40th move)… probably he was winning and I have some spite checks (when opponents delay inevitable checkmates). 99 out of 100 times I would lose… just a lucky day. First Classical win over Magnus, not the way I expected (or) wanted it to be but I will take it.”
It has to be noted that even after becoming the world champion last year, Gukesh had said that Carlsen was the best player in the world , hence it was not a surprise to see the Indian getting highly emotional after beating his idol, while the 34-year-old was frustrated and slammed the table after suffering a defeat .
Nonetheless, Carlsen still holds the lead at Norway Chess 2025 along with Fabiano Caruana at 9.5 points after six rounds, while Gukesh is second with one point less.