‘Nice that I could win against Magnus from two losing positions in a row’: Gukesh who topped rapid format at Zagreb

Elaborating on how he was upturning some pretty shabby positions, Gukesh added, “Beating Magnus is always special for sure and I think this also gives bit more confidence. Because I just had a horrible position from the opening. I mixed up something really bad and then it’s nice that I could win against Magnus from two losing positions in a row.”

INTERACTIVE: How Gukesh defeated Magnus Carlsen

He was asked how he extricated himself from the meshes. “It’s not always easy. But you make the most of ‘don’t lose from this point’. Also against Fabiano, I had a pretty bad position. But atleast he was taking too much time so it was not really that big a practical disadvantage. Just one move at a time. Stay in the game,” he said.

READ MORE | Garry Kasparov explains why playing Gukesh is ‘like playing a computer’: Have to beat him 5 times… he has many lives in each game

Gukesh admitted to erring firstly on playing g6, as he “mixed up something very bad in the opening.”

What followed was a series of tangles he got caught in. His calm demeanour never lets on, but quite a chaos raged in his mind. “At some point, I thought this was possible knight h5- g7. But you just get knight f1 – bishop , it’s just too fast. Later I just realised I should play a4, I realised it later. I wasn’t really sure of it. Just playing pretty bad. To be very honest. By knight to h5, I was already very uncomfortable here. By then somehow it feels like closed knights are on good squares, but they are not permanently good. Also the b5 was very weak. I didn’t know what to do with them. I should go h5, should go …something like this I Could have done. It’s tricky,” he said.

READ MORE | Magnus Carlsen reacts to Gukesh defeat: ‘Poor from me, got soundly punished… but all credit to Gukesh’

He would proceed to play what the interviewer called a very counterintuitive – close position. “But in fact it seems like if it opens up, then white king becomes weak? So you want to open up the position …?” he was asked. Gukesh would talk of the sudden counterplay bursting on him. “It’s tricky. The only moment when I realised I might have a chance was when I played c6. Initially I thought what he did was clever with b4. But after c6 it gets really tricky. Should be better but like suddenly when you face counterplay it’s never easy.”

One feature of Gukesh taking the lead before blitz kicks off was his impressive time management and always dictating pace when it’s down to 5 minutes left on clock. He was asked if it was strategy. “It’s not always the case. Against Fabi, yes. He was taking too much time. So it’s natural I put pressure.
Against Magnus this game specifically was that. I had no choice but to play fast. With my bad positions. But ya good moves on good time is good time management,” he humbly accepted.

READ MORE | Garry Kasparov explains why playing Gukesh is ‘like playing a computer’: Have to beat him 5 times… he has many lives in each game

C6 was described as a completely wild option, one he assessed in 4 minutes 40 seconds. Gukesh ceded it had the desired impact. “I was already too happy to get to this position. Two knights even if it’s 4 minutes it’s still tricky to handle all these knights with a kinda weak king. My king is quite safe. All the pawns are hanging. It wasn’t precise. You just lose some pawns to get some attacks in. I was pretty optimistic about my chances here.”

When told Garry Kasparov had said he would bet on Gukesh at this point just because he was playing his moves, making his decisions much more confidently, Gukesh said he had calculated it quickly. Too fast for Carlsen. “It’s just a much easier position for black in rapid. E4, he took some time, 3 minutes. I was kinda expecting rook c3 or rook c5. And against both E4 was quite strong. So I could play immediately because I had already calculated it. After this it wasn’t holdable in last 1 minute.”

It left Carlsen with rook c2 as the only move available. Like Kasparov had said, nobody plays rook c2 with 1 minute on clock. Gukesh had his man and knew it too.