Magnus's menace: How young Indian Grandmasters are proving to be his toughest challengers

Magnus Carlsen’s authority as the world’s best chess player had hardly been challenged since he defeated Viswanathan Anand in 2013 to be crowned world champion, three years after he rose to the top of the FIDE ratings for the first time in his career. Carlsen would go on to defeat Anand in a rematch the following year, and thus began an era of domination rivaled only by legends of the game such as Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov in the board game’s history.

And even at the age of 34, more than two decades after attaining the title of ‘Grandmaster’, Carlsen continues to scale new heights in chess, having recently become the first player ever to breach the 2900 ELO rating barrier, albeit in Freestyle format. Nonetheless, at the same time, the Norwegian chess icon, who has been the world’s top-ranked player continuously since 2011, finds his authority increasingly challenged with each passing tournament.

And there’s a particular group of players who have proven to be a thorn in the flesh for Carlsen more often than not – young Indian Grandmasters. Particularly, the current generation of rising stars, who have excelled over the last couple of years, has transformed India into a powerhouse of sorts in the world of chess.

Losing against Indian players isn’t a recent phenomenon for Carlsen – he had, after all, lost to veteran Grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna at the Lausanne Young Masters in 2005. Legendary GM Anand too had scored quite a few wins over Carlsen in the early years of his career – especially during his second reign as world champion from 2007 to 2012, and most recently at the 2022 Norway Chess.

Karthikeyan Murali became only the third Indian to defeat the Norwegian at the Qatar Masters in 2023. Over a year later, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa would become the first of the current generation of stars to triumph over Carlsen in the Classical format – at the Norway Chess, his home event, of all places. Later that year, Arjun Erigaisi would outclass Carlsen in just 20 moves at the Tata Steel Blitz event in Kolkata

‘King’ and ‘weaker player’ jibes intensify rivalry with Indians

So why the spotlight on Carlsen’s defeats against young Indians in recent months?

It might have something to do with India’s rise as a chess nation since 2024 – a year that witnessed Gukesh Dommaraju become the youngest champion in the history of the Candidates Tournament and the World Championship, besides India becoming only the third nation to achieve a golden sweep at the Chess Olympiad .

That and Carlsen’s feud with FIDE, in which the former not only criticised the Lausanne-based world governing body and how they ran the sport at a global level, but also slammed Classical chess in favour of the new Freestyle format.

Some of those potshots were directed towards Anand, who has served as FIDE’s deputy president since 2022. And it was only a matter of time before Gukesh and his cronies would be targeted.

Carlsen and Gukesh had come face-to-face for the first time since the latter was crowned world champion at this year’s Norway Chess. After beating him in dominant fashion in the opening round , Carlsen took a jibe at Gukesh by quoting a line from the popular HBO series, “You come at the king, you best not miss.” A little over a month later, ahead of the SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz Croatia, Carlsen took a fresh dig at Gukesh by referring to him as “one of weaker players” .

Letting the chess pieces do the talking

On both occasions, Gukesh responded with brilliance on the chess board to silence Carlsen without saying a word. In Norway, Gukesh fought back from a near-hopeless position to defeat Carlsen for the first time in his career, pulling off what surely was the biggest win of his career alongside his triumph over Ding Liren in the World Championship in December. What made the result even more dramatic was Carlsen’s infamous fist-slam on the table in anger that elicited a shocked reaction from his opponent.

And earlier this month in Zagreb, the teenage Grandmaster from Chennai defeated Carlsen for the second time in as many meetings, this time to shut him up for the “weaker players” jibe.

Also Read | Gukesh doesn’t miss while coming at ‘King’ Carlsen, justifies the ‘world champion’ tag

And unlike his victory in Stavanger, this was a win in the Rapid format – one he was considered weak in – in which he dictated terms from start to finish. The manner in which he lost even led to Russian icon Kasparov questioning Magnus’ dominance .

It wasn’t just the traditional forms of the game that Carlsen has been challenged in. At the ongoing fourth leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour in Las Vegas, USA, Carlsen lost to Praggnanandhaa in just 39 moves after committing a couple of blunders. The defeat derailed his campaign after a strong start in which he had won his first two games and drew the third, and culminated in the Freestyle Chess co-founder shockingly failing to reach the quarter-finals.

And if that’s not all, Carlsen had nearly lost to nine-year-old Candidate Master Aarit Kapil in Chess.com’s Titled Tuesday event last month ahead of his trip to Croatia.

A spicy rivalry that makes chess so much more interesting

And it’s not just Indians who are getting the better of Carlsen over the course of the last one year – German Grandmaster Vincent Keymer, after all, had pulled off one of the biggest upsets in recent months after beating Carlsen in the semi-finals of Freestyle Chess Weissenhaus in February, the event that he would end up winning later.

However, his equation with Indian GMs, especially the young trio of Gukesh, Pragg and Arjun, just has that extra spice which certainly has made chess all the more eventful. There’s little doubt over the fact that Carlsen continues to reign supreme, as evidenced by the fact that he won the Norway Chess as well as SuperUnited Croatia, events where he made headlines for his losses to Gukesh more than anything else.

India’s ‘Golden’ Generation’, however, is leading the way when it comes to highlighting the fact that Carlsen isn’t quite the unstoppable force he once was, especially when he voluntarily decided against defending his world title in 2022, as if to suggest he grew bored with the lack of competition.