The Gukesh-Carlsen rivalry is spicing up the chess scene

The Gukesh–Carlsen rivalry seems to be the flavour of the year in the chess world of 2025 — and it’s spilling over across formats now.

Barely a month had passed since world No.1 Magnus Carlsen thumped the table after losing to the young world champion in Norway before he was made to eat humble pie again on Thursday night, 3 July.

The Norway showpiece saw Gukesh inflicting his first defeat on the temperamental genius in the classical format, though Carlsen walked away with the title.

This time, the Chennaiite had the last laugh against Carlsen in a rapid contest at the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia 2025 in Zagreb.

Carlsen, with the Rapid and Blitz formats as his favourites, grudgingly lauded Gukesh yesterday after singing a different tune in his verbal warfare at the start of the event.

Before the tournament, Carlsen had gone so far as to say that he saw the matches against Gukesh (one in the rapid and two in the blitz format over the weekend) as being ones against one of the “presumably weaker players in the tournament”.

Here’s exactly what he had said: “Gukesh hasn’t done anything to indicate that he’s going to do well (in rapid and blitz).

“It remains to be proven that he’s one of the best players in such a format. This is a very, very strong field that we have here. Players like Gukesh have a lot to prove. In the course of 27 rounds, things usually show.”

Later, resigning to Gukesh after 49 moves on Thursday, a disappointed Carlsen said: “It was poor (performance from me) but all credit to Gukesh. He’s playing well and taking his chances. I’ve played kind of poorly the whole tournament. This time I got soundly punished.

“I think I had a very nice position. He took his chance to open up the position. After that it was a little bit like earlier, when I got short of time and I could not handle it that well. And Gukesh found a lot of really good moves.”

The Norwegian went on to suggest, however, that Gukesh was not defeating him at his best — and had help from Carlsen’s own poor form:

“Honestly, I’m not enjoying playing chess at all right now. I just… I don’t feel any flow at all. When I am playing, I’m constantly hesitating. It’s just really poor right now.”

The highly billed game started positively for Carlsen and, after 20 moves, he held a significant edge on the board — but the game then unraveled for him.

“It’s a long way to go in the tournament, but winning five games in a row is no mean feat,” Carlsen added, allowing Gukesh credit there.

However, Gukesh received a major thumbs-up from no less than Garry Kasparov, in one of the commentators chairs at the event.

“Now we can question Carlsen’s domination,” said Kasparov. “This is not just his second loss to Gukesh, it’s a convincing loss.

“It’s not a miracle... or that Gukesh just kept benefitting from Magnus’ terrible mistakes. It was a game that was a big fight. And Magnus lost.”