World Champion D Gukesh was exceedingly fortunate, being down badly in the hands of Anish Giri from Holland, he was able to flip the match when needed in the initial round of the Tata Steel Masters competition.

Gukesh attended an overnight flight to Amsterdam from Delhi after he was presented with the Khel Ratna award on Friday. It seems that the travel affected the young Indian but when it comes to important moments, he tends to ramp it up. Gukesh’s endgame strategies were strong enough to leave Giri in a complicated situation where he had to choose between winning moves, and so he only foresaw all but the last one.

“Gukesh was in India to receive one of the highest civilian awards from the government just yesterday and today let’s go straight to the point and he took a flight to the game and got into the country 3 hours before the game started, hm,” he said in his Youtube channel American GM Hikaru Nakamura

“Even Anish himself has worked quite hard outside of this event, but Anish did exceptionally well in this tournament traditionally Gukesh was probably a little bit tired probably a little bit jetlag,” he added.

Gukesh drowned in moves after 33 in the game against Giri but Giri two moves later blundered and gave Gukesh Gukesh won in 42 moves. Gukesh outstayed Giri on three occasions in the game and he claimed victory in mere seconds of having clock whits a few seconds left on his clock.

“He clearly lost a heartbreaker and it will definitely pull on his heart however on the opposite side Gukesh played excellently as well,” Nakamura explained.

“Although he did blunder the h3, he did show outstanding resilience under time pressure, as anaya said it was commendable. It is crucial to provide Gukesh with ample accolades for placing Anish under such a challenge.

Innocently stumbled and lost. He is now a world class champion and earned his first victory in several months; it was stimulating to watch the Singapore game between him and Ding Liren. The tournament opened strongly for it is,” she said.