For the previous few years, the act of resetting the items on the chess board after a recreation has develop into world champion D Gukesh’s signature transfer. He does it after bruising defeats. Does it after drab attracts. He positively does it after epoch-making victories. He famously did it after beating Ding Liren in recreation 14 of the world championship in Singapore, a victory which formalised his ascendency as the latest world champion. He additionally did it after that emotion-charged recreation towards Magnus Carlsen at Norway Chess final 12 months—the one which ended with the world no 1 smashing his fist on the desk in a bout of rage earlier than resigning. Gukesh additionally did it after two current defeats to arch-rival Nodirbek Abdusattorov, as soon as, in January on the Tata Metal Chess event after making one of many worst blunders of his profession after which once more on Sunday after one other blunder led to a second consecutive defeat to the Uzbek GM. However on Tuesday night, for as soon as, the 19-year-old world champion was too upset after defeat to Aravindh Chithambaram to take care of things like rituals.
Proper after he had resigned his sixth spherical recreation towards Aravindh, a wounded Gukesh speedwalked himself out of the taking part in corridor, pausing just for a quick second to signal the scoresheets as dictated by rules. Then, he was out of there. It was comprehensible. Tuesday’s defeat implies that Gukesh not solely slumped to World No 20 within the stay FIDE scores which can be up to date in real-time, however he additionally slid right down to final spot within the Prague Worldwide Chess Pageant standings amongst 10 gamers. After six rounds, Gukesh has misplaced thrice and drawn the opposite three video games. These outcomes have price him 19 scores factors.
The sport towards Aravindh was once more determined by a late error from Gukesh who needed to make 5 strikes from his thirty fifth to the fortieth transfer with simply seconds on his clock. At that stage, the engine analysis solely barely favoured Aravindh. Gukesh had a rook and a pawn extra on the board to counter his opponent having two knights. However then, Gukesh allowed each of Aravindh’s knights and his rook to squat on the e file, making issues claustrophobically laborious for his king on h2.
INTERACTIVE: How Gukesh misplaced to Aravindh
https://lichess.org/broadcast/prague-international-chess-festival-2026–masters/round-6/su8Pe1B4
The sport-changing blunder from Gukesh got here on transfer 40, proper earlier than each gamers obtained an extra half-hour on their clocks. With Aravindh’s knight on e2 attacking his rook on g3, Gukesh moved the rook to f3, aligning it with the second white rook on f2. That turned out to be a deadly mistake: the engine mentioned that he ought to have performed d3.
“In all probability f4 (37. f4) was the essential mistake as a result of it allowed my knight to leap on like e3 and e2 squares. Perhaps if he had performed rook d2 as an alternative of f4 like I suppose the sport would have resulted in a draw,” Aravindh advised the event’s YouTube deal with in an interview.
Tuesday’s recreation was not solely time just lately that the world champion has discovered himself in dire time bother a number of instances on the event.
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“One of many essential elements at the moment, I imagine, was the time scenario. He (Gukesh) was truly getting low on time and with two knights on the board, it truly can get difficult prefer it occurred within the recreation. So I wished to not let him discover a direct strategy to equalize the place. Time truly performed an important issue,” Aravindh mentioned. “If he had time I feel he would have positively discovered rook d3 (on transfer 40, the place Gukesh blundered the sport away by taking part in 40.Rgf3). Rook to d3 was the one transfer he may have made (to save lots of the sport).”
The prodigiously-talented Aravindh is somebody who is just not too excessive on confidence himself lately.
“It was a tough recreation for each of us. Coming into the sport, each of us have been having a foul event,” Aravindh mentioned after he had ended his dangerous event however deepened the frown traces on Gukesh’s brow.
“It was very laborious to really play this recreation, however I’m comfortable that I broke my shedding streak and managed to win a single recreation,” he added.
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For the world champion, the remainder of the event is unlikely to deliver any respite: Gukesh will play Iranian GM Parham Maghsoodloo, GM Vincent Keymer of Germany and GM David Anton Guijarro of Spain within the final three rounds.
Gukesh wants a reset, and quick!