A bang of the fist on the table that upset the chessboard, a blink-and-you-miss handshake with the opponent, then a cry of “Oh my God!”
Even the invincible can make mistakes.
Disbelief written across his face, Magnus Carlsen, five-time world chess champion, somehow regained his composure, patted his 19-year-old vanquisher and walked away.
His victorious opponent, Dommaraju Gukesh of Chennai and India, too seemed dazed. He got off his chair and walked a few paces, covering his mouth, as though looking to be alone. He then covered his eyes and stood still for several seconds.
This was the Indian’s first victory over the Norwegian, the world No. 1 and a great of the game, in classical chess.
They had come up against each other on Carlsen’s home soil, in Round VI of the Norway Chess Tournament in Stavanger, on Sunday.
Carlsen, 34, held the whip hand almost through the four-hour contest before making a critical mistake.
“There wasn’t much I could do…. Luckily, he (Carlsen) got into a time scramble,” Gukesh later said.
“First classical win over Magnus, not the way I expected (or) wanted it to be, but I will take it. I was just trying to make the moves which were tricky for him.”
He added: “Ninety-nine out of 100 times I would lose… just a lucky day.... I’ve also banged on a lot of tables in my career.”
Gukesh, who played with white pieces, had earlier lost to the Norwegian in Round 1.
Sunday’s win takes the Indian to third position with 8.5 points, one point shy of joint leaders Carlsen and US grandmaster Fabiano Caruana. According to tournament rules, a victory brings three points.
“Yes, this win will give Gukesh loads of confidence,” grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna, who had coached Gukesh in his formative years, told The Telegraph from Chennai. “This game showed Carlsen is not unbeatable, that he too can make mistakes.”
Gukesh is now coached by Polish grandmaster Grzegorz Gajewski. Vishnu said Gukesh’s game had evolved since his world championship victory in December. “He is trying newer things; he is definitely getting stronger.”
After becoming the youngest ever world champion, Gukesh had expressed hopes of playing Carlsen in a future world championship final.
“No, I am not part of the circus any more,” Carlsen had declared, promptly thumbing down the possibility a day after the Indian’s feat.
On Sunday, Gukesh kept prolonging the game by finding the right moves to survive.
Eventually, Carlsen dropped his knight and Gukesh pounced on his opponent’s error. “One thing I learned from this tournament was (that) time scrambles can go out of control,” Gukesh said.
On his Round 1 defeat from an advantageous position, Gukesh said: “I don’t know, I’m still kind of shaken from that game. I don’t know what happened, basically.”
Coach Gajewski said: “It (the win) is going to give him a bump of confidence. Because once you’ve done it, you know you can do it again. And that’s the plan.”
He added: “After the first game (that Gukesh lost to Carlsen), we saw that the main problem was time management, and because of the time trouble, he lost the position that he should not have.
“So, we decided that we had to correct this time management, and already in the game with Hikaru (Nakamura), we could witness this improvement and progress.”