Donnarumma Gukesh stuns world champion Magnus Carlsen in Aimchess Rapid

NEW YORK: Indian teenager Donnarumma Gukesh made chess history in the Aimchess Rapid on Sunday evening as he became the youngest player ever to beat Norway's Magnus Carlsen as world champion.

The 16-year-old's win was Carlsen's second loss in two days against one of India's new crop of talented teenagers in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Carlsen went down on Saturday to 19-year-old Arjun Erigaisi.

"What a monumental day in history," International Master Jovanka Houska said. "It was just an incredible, incredible performance by Gukesh."

The key moment in the Round 9 game was after Gukesh played 25.Rc7 in a position that looked good for Carlsen. The champion's reply 25...Re8? turned out to be a blunder and after 26.Qb6! putting Carlsen's queen in peril, Gukesh was suddenly winning. Carlsen, playing from a log cabin in northern Sweden, spent five minutes thinking about his move after realising his mistake. He was shaking his head, gesticulating and spinning on his chair. Clearly, he was angry with himself. A few moves later, he resigned.

International Master Lawrence Trent said, "The opening actually went very well for Magnus and he was kind of cruising. But this move came out of nowhere, literally it was completely unexpected." Speaking of Carlsen, Trent said, "He's a man who, let's put it this way, he doesn't like to lose so he's going to have to regroup quite quickly."

Gukesh is 16 years, 4 months and 20 days old, while the previous record before Gukesh's win was R. Praggnanandhaa's 39-move victory over Carlsen in the Airthings Masters in February. Pragg, who is not playing in this event, was 16 years, 6 months and 10 days old.

Despite the win, Gukesh wasn't impressed with his own play. "Obviously, beating Magnus is always special but I was not really very proud of that game," he said. However, he did crack a smile when told he was the youngest player to beat Carlsen as world champion.

But as fate would have it, in the next game, Gukesh immediately came back down to earth when he lost in 42 moves to the high-flying Pole Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who ended the day on top of the leaderboard. (IANS)

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