Breaking: Olympiad R8 – Gukesh!

by ChessBase
8/6/2022 – Team India B, four debutants still in their teens, created the biggest and most sensational upset of the 44th Chess Olympiad today by routing the top seed and star-studded USA Team 3-1. The sensation of the day – and of the entire Olympiad so far – was the performance of Dommaraju Gukesh. The sixteen-year-old had won all of his first seven games, and now faced former World Championship Challenger Fabiano Caruana, with the black pieces. So what did the lad do: he outplayed and actually mated his illustrious opponent! You can watch it all unfold in an exciting video report | Photo Stev Bonhage
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Raunak Sadhwani played brilliantly to defeat much higher-rated Leinier Perez Dominguez, while Nihal Sarin and R Praggnanandhaa held much higher-rated Levon Aronian and Wesley So with almost effortless ease.

But the man (actually boy) of the day was 16-year-old Dommaraju Gukesh, who had won all of his first seven games at the 44th Chess Olympiad. Today he faced former World Championship Challenger Fabiano Caruana in a critical game on the top board for India B. And he had the black pieces. So what did the lad do: outplay and actually mate his illustrious opponent! He now has tallied eight out of eight points.

"This is one of the most sensational debuts in the history of the Olympiad," writes FIDE, "comparable only to former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik’s record set in 1992 of 8.5/9, clocking a 2958 rating performance." With this win over over a 2783 opponent Gukesh has clocked a 3366 performance, and with a live rating of 2729 he has overtaken Harikrishna, to become India’s number two player behind Vishy Anand.

It was uniquely exciting to watch the round on the ChessBase India live broadcast, with Sagar Shah squealing with excitement, and a host of GMs and IMs dropping in to join the fun. If you want to relive the atmosphere you can watch all the action in this six-hour broadcast:

Until now, 337,000 chess fans have watched it so far, with the number growing hourly. We watched it live, and enjoyed every moment of the broadcast.

Even after this exhausting game Gukesh still had enough energy to answer some questions in the media center, saying that “Fabiano is one of my favourite players, and it was a pleasure to play against him”.

In addition you can watch 12-year-old Gukesh discussing endgames with ChessBase Endgame expert GM Dr. Karsten Müller. This was in April 2019 when Gukesh visited Hamburg.

A full report on Round eight of the Chennai Olympiad will appear shortly.

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lajosarpad lajosarpad 8/7/2022 03:18
Gukesh is doing absolutely great! His performance in this Olympiad will go down as one of the all-time best chess performances.
Frederic Frederic 8/7/2022 10:09
Sorry Karsten, I have added a link to the one-hour discussion you had with Gukesh back then, when he was still twelve years. I remember how I came into the studio and asked, "So, is he talented?" You started to answer when you noticed I was looking at Gukesh. It was a nice pleasantry, which both of you enjoyed.
Karsten Müller Karsten Müller 8/7/2022 08:49
Great article! Gukesh is really amazing as I found out myself:
https://en.chessbase.com/post/endgame-magic-126
Pionki Pionki 8/7/2022 07:10
India will soon be the powerhouse of chess and will dominate the world for years to come. It's simple: the sheer number of citizens times the motivation sparked by Vishy. The best chess player in the history of the game will come from India (but he may not have been born yet).
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