New Delhi: Indian-origin American Grandmaster Abhimanyu Mishra made headlines when he defeated world champion Gukesh Dommaraju in the fifth round of the FIDE Grand Swiss in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
He became the youngest player ever to win against a reigning champion in a game of classical chess. The 16-year-old played with black pieces to stun the youngest-ever world chess champion Gukesh in 61 moves.
Mishra broke US GM Gata Kamsky’s record, set 33 years ago, when the then 17-year-old defeated the then world champion Garry Kasparov in Dortmund.
In the fourth round, Mishra held top seed R Praggnanandhaa, from a losing position with black. Praggnanandhaa slumped to a shock defeat against Germany’s Matthias Bluebaum in the fifth round while Arjun Erigaisi beat Russian-turned-Swiss Nikita Vituigov.
Parham Maghsoodloo defeated Richard Rapport of Hungary to grab the sole lead on 4.5 points out of a possible five.
Mishra had become world’s youngest GM at the age of 12 years, 4 months, and 25 days in 2021. Speaking after his head-turning win over Gukesh, he backed himself to win the tournament.
‘Not a clean game’
“Honestly, I would much prefer the game that I have won before. Like my game against Yu Yangyi was so much better than this because even though I won, it doesn’t feel as pleasing as my previous games in the tournament, as I had the winning position and I basically just threw it away. And later he made some mistakes and I got back, but overall, it wasn’t a very clean game,” Mishra said.
“But the tournament is going better than I could have possibly imagined. If I keep up this form, I have a very real chance of winning the tournament. Yesterday, too, I made some errors against Pragg. But I never felt like I was inferior to these players (Gukesh and Pragg). I think I am at par with them.”
In the women’s section, R Vaishali maintained her position as the joint leader after agreeing to a draw with Russian Lateryna Lagno.
Dinara Wagner of Germany and Ulviyya Fataliyeva of Azerbaijan joined Vaishali and Lagno at the top of the standings with four points from five games.