Indian chess sensation Dommaraju Gukesh defeats Magnus Carlsen on his 17th birthday
Dommaraju Gukesh surveys the board during his round nine game against the Azerbaijan team at the 44th Chess Olympiad on August 7
By Ben Morse, CNN
(CNN) — As birthday presents go, defeating the world No. 1 and five-time world champion must rank up there among the best for chess grandmaster Dommaraju Gukesh.
On his 17th birthday, the young Indian chess star beat Magnus Carlsen in the blitz event ahead of the Norway Chess tournament.
Afterwards, Gukesh was presented a cake by the organizers in celebration of both his birthday and the victory.
When asked if he’d prepare for the next day’s matches by eating lots of cake, he replied: “Hopefully.”
The blitz event in which Gukesh beat Carlsen on Monday was held to determine each players’ seeds for the classical event which followed.
In the tournament, which is held in Stavanger, Norway, 10 players compete in a single round-robin tournament.
The winner will receive approximately $68,400 with second place winning $36,500.
As well as Gukesh and Carlsen, a whole host of the world’s best players are competing, including Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana.
After three games of the official tournament, Gukesh sits fourth in the standings with one win, one loss and one draw.
Carlsen lies down in eighth without a win after two draws and one defeat. Caruana sits atop the standings.
Last week, Carlsen won his first tournament since he relinquished the world championship title he had held for a decade.
“It’s nice to show that my retirement only lasted a couple of days,” he said after winning the Superbet Rapid & Blitz tournament in Poland.
Gukesh has risen rapidly through the ranks of chess after exploding onto the scene as a youngster.
He missed out by 17 days on becoming the youngest chess grandmaster ever, earning the title at the age of 12 years, seven months and 17 days, just a few weeks older than Russian Sergey Karjakin. Since then, Abhimanyu Mishra broke the record and became the youngest chess grandmaster at the age of 12 years, four months and 25 days.
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