Gukesh suffers another defeat to long-time nemesis Nodirbek Abdusattorov at Prague chess event

Abdusattorov later called the game “messy, complicated and tough”.

“It was a completely crazy game,” Abdusattorov told Chessbase India. “Closer to the time control I started to outplay him. Objectively it was equal, but I continued to press him and at the end he was low on time and he panicked.”

WATCH: Gukesh loses to Nodirbek Abdusattorov

At Prague, which is Gukesh’s second classical tournament of 2026, after five rounds, Gukesh is yet to win a game, having lost twice and drawing the other three.

At the Tata Steel Chess event in Wijk aan Zee in January this year, Gukesh had won three games and lost as many, with one of those defeats coming against Abdusattorov. That game in January had also seen Gukesh blunder away a pawn and a rook with one decision before he had opted to resign shortly afterwards. That loss had been a particularly bruising one for Gukesh: he had spent almost five minutes at the board looking stunned before walking into the press room at Wijk and spending over 10 minutes standing and staring at a wall in silence.

Gukesh was shell-shocked after realising his blunder. The world champion resigned immediately after Nodirbek Abdusattorov’s response. (Screengrab via ChessBase India livestream)
A disappointed Gukesh after blundering an equal position against Nodirbek Abdusattorov. (PHOTO: Lennart Ootes)

“Shit happens,” he had said a couple of days after that defeat in an interview with the official channel of Tata Steel.

“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,” Gukesh had reasoned in January.

Sunday’s blunder was not as glaring as that one. But the defeat will rankle nonetheless. After all, the event is part of his prep as he sharpens himself for a defence of the world champion’s throne at the end of the year. And it comes against someone from his own generation who is starting to become a problem for the world champion.

Just as Gukesh has emerged as the posterboy of Indian chess in the past two years, Abdusattorov has been the spearhead of Uzbek chess ambitions. And their battles are starting to gain an added bite since Abdusattorov defeated Gukesh at the 2022 Olympiad in a game the Indian could have drawn to help the Indian team claim gold. But defeat meant the Uzbek team clinched gold. Two years later, at the Budapest Olympiad, Gukesh and Nodirbek had met once again as the top boards. That game had ended in a draw.

In his defence of the world championship at least, Gukesh won’t have to worry about Abdusattorov. The Uzbek has not qualified for the eight-man Candidates tournament, which means he cannot emerge as a challenger for the Indian at this year’s world championship at least. But given the recent string of results, Gukesh will have bigger things to fret over in the next few months.

Amit Kamath is Assistant Editor at The Indian Express and is based in Mumbai. He primarily writes on chess and Olympic sports, and co-hosts the Game Time podcast, a weekly offering from Express Sports. He also writes a weekly chess column, On The Moves. ... Read More

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