 "D Gukesh suffered his first ever defeat to Wesley So as he continues to struggle at Sinquefield Cup 2025. Image: Grand Chess Tour")
Amid criticism from chess great Garry Kasparov that reigning world champion D Gukesh can “hardly” be called the strongest player , the Indian chess player suffered his first-ever defeat to Filipino-American chess Grandmaster Wesley So in the seventh round of the Sinquefield Cup 2025 on Monday at the Saint Louis Chess Club. Gukesh’s chances of reaching the Grand Chess Tour Finals also seem almost over as the tournament continues to go from bad to worse for the 19-year-old chess Grandmaster.
Gukesh has dropped to the fourth spot in the standings, while compatriot R Praggnanandhaa jumped to the top with a famous win over Iranian-French chess prodigy Alireza Firouzja.
Gukesh slides in Sinquefield Cup standings
Praggnanandhaa now leads the Sinquefield Cup 2025 standings with 4.5 points from seven matches, the same as Fabiano Caruana. Levon Aronian and So are joint second with 4 points, while Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Sam Sevian are joint third with 3.5 points each.
Gukesh and Firouzja find themselves in the fourth spot with 3 points each, while Nodirbek Abdusattorov is at the bottom with just 1.5 points.
A victory on Monday would have pushed Gukesh to the second spot, but world No.12 Wesley So stopped the Indian chess star in his tracks as he defeated the world champion for the first time in a Classical match. It was Wesley’s first win of the tournament as well after six draws.
Wesley So clinches historic win over Gukesh
Playing with weaker Black pieces, an error-prone Gukesh made multiple inaccurate moves like 20…Re7 and 21…d5, allowing Wesley to secure a win after just 39 moves. Gukesh, in the match, had a poor accuracy rating of 89.9, while his opponent registered an accuracy rating of 97.4.
How Wesley So defeated Gukesh:
“For sure, it’s a big deal, beating the world champion Gukesh Dommaraju,” Wesley told the broadcasters after beating Gukesh. “He’s very young, very strong. It’s an honour to play him. He calculates like a computer. I have never beaten him in classical before, but to be fair, I have played very few games against him.”
Praggnanandhaa moves closer to GCT Finals
Meanwhile, Praggnanandhaa outclassed Firouzja in 31 moves as the Iranian-French Grandmaster committed multiple blunders in the game. The 20-year-old Praggnanandhaa has put himself in a very strong position to qualify for the Grand Chess Tour Finals.
Only the top four in the Grand Chess Tour standings will qualify for the 2025 Finals. Praggnanandhaa is fifth with 20 points, while Caruana is currently in the final qualifying spot of fourth with 20.5 points. Praggnanandhaa can easily qualify for the GCT finals by outperforming Caruana at the Sinquefield Cup 2025.