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Journalism of Courage
Gukesh Dommaraju was handed a 5-1 defeat — which included the teenager losing five games in a row — in an exhibition blitz event in Poland’s Katowice by Jan-Krzysztof Duda, the man who helped the Indian teenager become the youngest world champion in chess history as a second (an aide) last year. The best-of-six games event saw Gukesh take a 1-0 lead in the start, but then lose five in a row.
It must be pointed out that blitz is not Gukesh’s preferred format. While the Indian is miles ahead of Duda in terms of rating in the classical format (Gukesh is world number six with a rating of 2776, while Duda is number 23 with 2725), Duda is better at the faster time controls. The Polish grandmaster leads the boy from Chennai in blitz, which is one of the fastest time controls in the sport: Duda is ranked 14th in the world with a rating of 2752. Meanwhile, Gukesh is rated 2613 and barely makes it into the top 100.
Gukesh rarely competes in blitz tournaments. He prefers the calmer waters of classical chess, than the turbulence of blitz — at Katowice both players had three minutes on their clocks and got two-second increments per move. He recently played in the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia tournament where he was leading after the rapid event ended, but after the blitz portion he ended third in the standings.
In the fifth game of the exhibition match, Gukesh blundered from an equal position to get checkmated. With both of Duda’s rooks converging on Gukesh’s unprotected king on the first rank, Gukesh moved in the wrong direction, playing 45. Kd1 instead of Kf1, which would have kept the pressure on Duda’s rook and avoided checkmate.
Commenting on the blunder that led to checkmate, chess legend Susan Polgar said on X: “This may potentially be a problem for him in his World Championship title defense. One cannot approach rapid and especially blitz the same way as classical chess. The approach and mindset have to be very different. He still has time to fix it but he has to learn to evaluate positions differently in faster time control. This is crucial because the current World Championship format includes rapid and blitz playoff. Complications = burning more valuable time on the clock.”
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In a previous game, the Indian teenager had lost by flagging (losing after having no time on his clock).
From Poland’s Katowice, the world champion will be headed to USA, where he will the lone Indian in action at the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz tournament, which will kickoff the events starting on August 11th (Monday).
