GUKESH BEATS MAGNUS! GUKESH BEATS MAGNUS! – #1 Chess Player In The World, Magnus Carlsen, SLAMS Table In Fury After Being Upset By 19-Year Old Prodigy
The Guardian - World champion Gukesh Dommaraju earned his first classical victory over Magnus Carlsen on Sunday at the Norway Chess tournament, toppling the longtime world No 1 in dramatic fashion and prompting the Norwegian to punch the table in frustration before storming out of the venue.
The win in round six of the double round-robin event marked a milestone moment in Gukesh’s young career, not for its stakes but for who it came against. Under pressure for much of the contest, the 19-year-old Indian grandmaster turned the tables in the final phase, capitalizing on a rare Carlsen blunder in time trouble to steal the point and shake up the standings in Stavanger.
“Right now, what means the most to me is that I didn’t lose the game,” Gukesh said afterwards. “But yes, beating Magnus in any form is special.”
I couldn't love and appreciate Magnus Carlson's reaction to losing more. He's livid. So livid he can barely keep from jumping out of his skin. But at the same time, he respects his opponent. Watching him alternate back and forth from losing his shit, to realizing "Ok Magnus be a good sport, shake his hand, that was a great match". That's the quintessential competitor right there. That's a man who loves his sport. A man who wants to be the best at what he does, and is eaten up on the inside when he's not. But at the same time respects the game. Any chess player with a Magnus Carlson-esque attitude could play for my chess club any day of the week.
For those wondering what exactly this means in the world of chess, which was me when I first saw this clip (and also Big Cat), my friend Liam Blutman helped explain via tweets. Blutman has never steered me wrong before, so I'm going to take his word for it.
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That's a life that somehow seems to make perfect sense for a chess player. From what I know about the game of chess (reading up on the occasional anal beads cheating scandal and watching the Queen's Gambit), chess seems like something you know if you're going to be great at by age 7. In fact, based on my experience, here is my quick power ranking of best chess players
Power Ranking of Chess Players
6. White adults who dedicate their entire lives to the game (non-Russian)
5. Computers
4. Russian adults who dedicate their entire lives to the game
3. Asian children
2. Orphan alcoholic drug addict girl
1. Homeless guy in Central Park
I guess Magnus Carlsen being the world #1 as a Norwegian kinda throws a wrench in my whole power ranking. But if we consider Magnus an outlier, I think I've got that pegged about right. I know that no matter how great you are at chess, there will come a point in your life when a young child from somewhere in the Western Hemisphere will embarrass you on a grand stage and shock the world. And I especially know for a fact that the best chess player in the world right now is sleeping in a pile of his own vomit somewhere on the streets of New York City.
Chess really knows how to show up out of nowhere with some hilarious drama. Whether it's Magnus Carlsen slamming the table like a cartoon character. Magnus Carlson quitting a chess tournament mid-competition because the chess people wouldn't let him play chess in jeans. Or one of the many times a chess professional has shoved a braid of vibrating anal beads up his butt, then had his friend sit in front of a super computer with a remote control and send vibrations through his ass to signal the best move.
If only chess could find a way to hold people's attention. They're great at grabbing it for brief moments. But by tonight, we'll have all pretty much forgotten professional chess exists, and we'll be onto arguing over whether or not Oklahoma City and Indiana will get good enough ratings in this years finals. Although I will say, I have seen some pretty amazingly large only chess streams lately. So maybe chess is growing a little more that I'm giving it credit for.
Keep it up chess. Bring us more frequent clips like Magnus slamming the table, maybe a few more sex toy related cheating scandals, and I might just be in.