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Journalism of Courage
In Stavanger, where the weather experiences a mood swing on an hourly basis, Gukesh Dommaraju dismissed the dark clouds hanging over his Norway Chess campaign with a takedown of tournament leader Hikaru Nakamura. The 18-year-old world champion forced Nakamura to resign in 42 moves on Wednesday at the Finansparken Bjergsted in Stavanger to post his first points on the board. By the time an unhappy-looking Nakamura waved the white flag of surrender on Wednesday evening, it was already midnight in India, which means Gukesh had turned 19.
The win was significant for the reigning world champion, who lost his first two games at the tournament to Magnus Carlsen and compatriot Arjun Erigaisi. But then, he rebounded by taking down Nakamura after rejecting his draw offer on move 30. Gukesh is coming into the tournament after finishing ninth out of 10 players at the recent Superbet Chess Classic tournament in Bucharest. This year, barring the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee, where he almost won the title, results have not favoured Gukesh. But a win like the one against Nakamura could potentially help Gukesh turnaround the ship.
For the past two days, Gukesh has power-walked his way out of the building after losing his games. But on Wednesday, he took his time to sign every piece of paper and every chessboard put in front of him. He also posed for many selfies from kids, occasionally breaking into a smile for any of them.
He was met by his father Rajini Kanth and long-time trainer Grzegorz Gajewski near the exit. The Polish coach first started travelling full-time with Gukesh at the Norway Chess tournament in 2023 and the duo have had significant success in the recent past, winning the Candidates tournament in 2024 and then becoming the youngest world champion in history by defeating Ding Liren last year. But the past few months have been rough on the duo, with success being at a premium.
“Obviously the last two games were kind of tough,” Gukesh said after the win. “Today I just tried to play it as a fresh tournament.”
“I feel quite good. I think my time management was much better today than before,” Gukesh added. “He had some drawing chances, but I guess overall it was good.”
‘What did I do?’
Analysing the game, Nakamura said that he had felt that the game was heading to a dead draw, but he had missed one move that gave a significant victory to his opponent. The move was Gukesh advancing his h pawn, playing 31. h4 which came as a shock for his American quarry. After playing the 30th move, he was eligible to ask for a draw, which he did, but Gukesh responded by moving his piece and rejecting the offer. Understandably then, Nakamura’s next move (31… Qd6) was categorised by the engine as a blunder.
Nakamura said that he was surprised on a few occasions in the middle game by his young opponent, such as when Gukesh played 18.Bb4 quickly. “I was really unsure what’s going on when he did that. When you play at the top level usually when you do calculations your opponent will play moves you looked at. But for the last few moves at that point, Gukesh played moves that I did not think were all that acceptable. By acceptable I mean I thought they were giving away the advantage,” remarked Nakamura on his YouTube stream.
A few moves later, Nakamura said that he started to feel a little more relaxed than he had been at the start of the game. He conceded later that this had been an error.
Nakamura said that when he played 25… Rf4, it had left himself confused because he had actually intended to play Na4. “It was simply inexplicable by me. What did I do?”
Asked if he had any plans to celebrate his birthday, Gukesh said: “I mean, during tournaments it’s always about the game. I just want to play a good game, and I’m looking forward to seeing the results.”
Birthday celebrations can wait, for the most serious 19-year-old in the world, there are more important things at stake.
(The writer is in Stavanger at the invitation of Norway Chess)
