Defending champion Aravindh Chithambaram put up a clinical show to outmanoeuvre D Gukesh on Tuesday. The reigning FIDE World Champion finds himself at the bottom of the table after six rounds of the Prague International Chess Festival.
Gukesh has been facing a tough time since he claimed the title in December 2024. This latest loss has seen him tumble to 20th in the live world rankings, with his rating dropping by more than fifty points in recent months. While he showed flashes of his best at the Tata Steel Masters in January — where he only lost out to R Praggnanandhaa in a tiebreaker — his form has since dipped into a genuine slump.
Aravindh switched to a sharp Sicilian Defence instead of the ill-fated Philidor in Prague, but Gukesh, with the white pieces, looked to create complications and sacrificed a pawn to create complications in the middle game. The game took an interesting endgame shape with the rook of the white side up against the two knights of the black side, but Gukesh blinked, committing a fatal error on the 40th move with time running out. Aravindh pounced on the error, wrapping up the game in eight moves.
It proved to be the only decisive result of the day in the Masters section. Jorden van Foreest maintained his solo lead on 4.5 points after a hard-fought draw with Czech favourite David Navara. Foreest, who had won five consecutive games leading into this round, pushed hard with an extra pawn, but Navara showed immense composure to hold the line. Navara remains half a point behind the leader, sharing second place with Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov.
Further down the standings, David Anton Guijarro sits on 3.5 points following a draw with Iran's Parham Maghsoodloo, while Aravindh, Vincent Keymer, and Nodirbek Yakubboev all remain in the chasing pack. Hans Niemann currently sits just a point ahead of Gukesh in what has been a difficult tournament for the American as well.
In the Challengers category, Indian hopes were kept alive as World Women's Cup winner Divya Deshmukh secured a draw against Holland's Thomas Beerdsen. Meanwhile, veteran Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly shared the points with Spain's Daniil Yuffa. With three rounds remaining, the race for the title in Prague remains wide open, though all eyes will be on whether Gukesh can find a way to arrest his slide before the tournament concludes.
Also read: Jittery Gukesh up against Aravindh in all-Indian clash
Follow us
