4 min readMar 2, 2026 08:00 AM IST
A punch-drunk game in the fifth round of the Prague International Chess Festival between two familiar foes—India’s D Gukesh and Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov—ended in defeat for the world champion after yet another uncharacteristic blunder from the Indian. A boy who was an unstoppable attacking force just two years ago—winning the Candidates and the World Championship in the first time of asking, besides inspiring the national Olympiad team to an unprecedented gold medal—now finds himself collecting as many defeats as victories in tournaments in 2026.
Sunday’s game saw Gukesh get an edge out of the opening, then Abdusattorov claw his way out of trouble, then Gukesh gaining the upper hand again, then blunder his edge away, then Abdusattorov holding a significant advantage, before the waters became tranquil again. Just when it looked like the game was going to taper off into a draw, a blunder on move 67 from Gukesh suddenly tilted the scale in Abdusattorov’s favour. One move later, with time running out and the game clearly not salvageable, Gukesh resigned.
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.
Story continues below this ad
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.
© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
