IMAGE: 19-year-old Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh outplayed former World champion Magnus Carlsen in the rapid format at the SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz tournament on Thursday. Photograph: FIDE/Roza Czarnota
World number one Magnus Carlsen says he is struggling to enjoy chess after suffering a second consecutive defeat to reigning World champion D Gukesh, who the Norwegian has described as a ‘weak’ player multiple times.
The 19-year-old Indian Grandmaster once again outplayed the former World champion, this time in the rapid format at the SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz tournament on Thursday.
The win comes less than a month after Gukesh stunned Carlsen in the classical format at the Norway Chess tournament, a match that ended with latter visibly frustrated, famously banging the table.
“Honestly, I am not enjoying playing chess at all right now. I just, I don’t feel any flow at all when I’m playing. I’m constantly hesitating and it’s just really poor right now,” Carlsen told Take Take Take after the loss.
The win against Carlsen marked Gukesh’s fifth consecutive triumph in the tournament as he grabbed the sole lead after six rounds.
“He’s doing incredibly well now (in the format).
It’s a long way to go in the tournament but winning five games in a row is no mean feat,” said Carlsen.
Carlsen has rarely missed an opportunity to voice his doubts over Gukesh’s prowess in the faster formats.
But he now has struggles of his own to worry about as he has managed just one win so far in the ongoing tournament. He conceded that his overall performance in the has been sub-par.
“I have played kind of poorly the whole tournament and this time I got soundly punished,” he said.
He credited Gukesh for capitalising on his chances while admitting that he found himself ‘hopelessly lost’ at one point during the game. Playing with white pieces, Carlsen was forced to resign after 49 moves.
“I had a very, very nice position. He took his chance to open out his position with C6. After that it was a little bit like earlier where I got short of time and I couldn’t really handle it that well and he found a lot of really good moves.”
“I had one last chance at some point to bail out to something that was very, very drawish but I thought let’s continue playing and then a couple of moves later I was pretty hopelessly lost.
“It was poor but all credit to Gukesh. He’s playing well and is taking his chances too,” he said.
