“Shit happens” That was world champion Gukesh’s frank assessment about his stunning blunder two rounds ago in the game against arch-rival Nodirbek Abdusattorov at the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee. The blunder, in an equalish position, meant that Gukesh would immediately lose a pawn and then a rook, and would be likely checkmated later on in the game. Gukesh had resigned from the game soon afterwards, and had also lost to Anish Giri the next day before finally bouncing back with a victory over Vladimir Fedoseev with black pieces on Sunday in round 8.
Gukesh had seemed inconsolable in the aftermath of the result against Abdusattorov, spending five minutes at the table speechless even as the Uzbekistan grandmaster tried to engage him in conversation and analyse the game. Later, Gukesh had walked into the press room at the tournament venue where he had spent another 10 to 15 minutes in silence with his face turned away from the world as he tried to come to terms with the blunder.
World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju reacts after resigning against Nodirbek Abdusattorov in round 6 of the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee. (Screengrabs via Chessbase India)
Speaking about the incident after he managed to defeat Fedoseev on Sunday, a smiling Gukesh said: “The best part about the blunder is that I cannot even explain how it happened. In a way, those kinds of blunders are perhaps easier to handle than the ones you can actually explain. This just happens—I mean, shit happens—it’s what happened. After that, I managed to move on. I think the more painful game was the one against Anish Giri (in round 7) because I was just completely off; I played one of my worst games in quite a while. It’s been a good challenge: After two losses, I still have to play good chess, and I’ve managed to do that,” Gukesh told the YouTube channel of Tata Steel Chess tournament in an interview on Sunday after his win.
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Abdusattorov had struck a sympathetic note after winning against Gukesh, even as he called the blunder “unexplainable.”
“I feel very sorry for him. It’s a terrible feeling. I’ve done it myself many times. So it’s an absolutely horrible feeling,” a sympathetic Abdusattorov said in an interview with the YouTube channel of Tata Steel Chess tournament after his win. “This game was pretty much normal. At some point I think he was getting excited and he was obviously trying to push but I sort of controlled the margin. I thought I had a good margin to draw and at the end he was getting low on time and he felt nervous and he blundered horribly.”
INTERACTIVE: How Gukesh lost to Nodirbek Abdusattorov
After two losses in a row, the game against Fedoseev provided some respite to the world champion. Gukesh earned his victory after multiple blunders from his opponent at the end of the game.
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Meanwhile, in other games involving Indians, R Praggnanandhaa was held to a draw by Turkish prodigy Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus a day after the 14-year-old had defeated Arjun Erigaisi with black pieces. Erigaisi and Aravindh Chithambaram had also played out a stalemate.
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