Gukesh says he fears no one at Candidates after outlasting Nijat Abasov in six-hour marathon

D Gukesh had just managed to beat Azerbaijan’s Nijat Abasov after a six-hour marathon in Round 5 when the organisers ushered the 17-year-old prodigy to the fan zone of the Great Hall to chat with fans. There, FIDE’s host for the event, Charlize van Zyl, asked him which player Gukesh was most afraid of playing in the prestigious Candidates tournament.

Follow our liveblog of Round 6 of the tournament by clicking here>>> CANDIDATES CHESS ROUND 6 LIVE 

Gukesh, just 17 years of age but all smouldering intensity, took a second to compose his response. “No one,” he said before breaking into a rare smile.

After five rounds, the second-youngest player ever to compete at the Candidates (the youngest being the legendary Bobby Fischer when he competed in 1959) finds himself on top of the standings with 3.5 points along with Ian Nepomniachtchi, a man who has won the Candidates twice. Gukesh is ahead of Fabiano Caruana, a man who is competing at his fifth Candidates. The Indian is unbeaten after five rounds, having also defeated the other teenage prodigy from his country, R Praggnanandhaa.

The Round 5 battle between Gukesh and Abasov lasted 87 moves before the Indian emerged victorious. The physical and mental strain on both players started to show after the 80th move, with Abasov blundering with his king on the 82nd and Gukesh repaying the favour with a blunder of his own in the next move.

With just five pieces left on the board by this stage — Gukesh having an extra pawn beside the queen and king — Abasov made two more blunders that put him in a position where checkmate was unavoidable.

When the end approached, despite how exhausting the last six hours had been, Gukesh stood up and started pacing around his board waiting for Abasov to make the inevitable move that secured his victory and ascent to the top of the standings.

INTERACTIVE: You can follow the move-by-move action from the Round 5 Candidates game between Gukesh and Nijat Abasov below and also click on the notations at the right of the board to retrace the way the game developed:

Gukesh results at the Candidates

There is still plenty of time left in the competition. But for Gukesh, standing on top of the standings even for a brief while would be satisfying, considering how close he was to not even making the cut for the event. While his compatriots in the open section, Vidit Gujrathi and Praggnanandhaa, had secured their spots by virtue of performances in single events like the FIDE World Cup and the FIDE Grand Swiss, Gukesh’s path to qualifying was through the long-winding FIDE Circuit route.

In fact, as he chased qualification for the Candidates, his results had started to dip in the last few months of 2023. When the door seemed almost shut on his qualification, a last-ditch window opened up via the Chennai Grand Masters in December. Despite all the promise he had shown over the course of his fledgling career, Gukesh had been written off by legends of the game, particularly Magnus Carlsen, in the lead- up to the Candidates.

Abasov also was one of the rank underdogs for the Candidates event — qualifying only because Carlsen refused to compete. He came into the event as the World No.110 with a rating of 2632 (and has never been rated in the 2700s). On top of that, his preparation for the Candidates could not have gone worse: the Azerbaijani Grandmaster had tried playing football to build up his physical fitness for the biggest tournament of his career when he tore his ACL which required surgery. He had started to walk just a week before he flew to Toronto.

Despite that, he was in a buoyant mood before the event, calling qualifying for the Candidates tournament his greatest achievement.

“Dark horse? Maybe that’s my psychological advantage over the rest of the players because I don’t have much pressure on me. Perhaps that’s my strategy: not having any pressure and enjoying my play,” he had said.

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