'Could've Easily Gone Bad': World Champion D Gukesh Reflects On His Hard-Earned Victory Against Fabiano Caruana At Norway Chess 2025

Norway Chess 2025: Reigning World Chess Champion, Gukesh Dommaraju's campaign in the ongoing Norway Chess 2025 has taken a significant and much more positive turn. The 19-year-old Grandmaster, who won the World Chess Championship last year by defeating Ding Liren, has had consecutive bad outings, but he has started to find glimpses of his brilliance, and his recent performances in the Norway Chess 2025 tournament have been assuring.

World Champion Gukesh Gets The Better Of World Number Three

The Indian Grandmaster, who recently turned 19 on May 29, 2025, outsmarted world No. 3 Fabiano Caruana in a tense tie-break after an underwhelming start, which saw him losing the first two rounds of classical chess. Gukesh stunned Caruana by defending for over four hours despite Caruana having a pawn edge. Though the match ended with a nerve-wracking tie-break, Caruana found it difficult to stop the Indian Grandmaster. 'The classical game could have easily gone bad, but luckily, I managed to save it in the time scramble, and then Armageddon was very good,' said the young World Champion right after the game.

It was a tough outing for Gukesh Dommaraju, as there were stricter rules in place and a total of only 10 seconds were added per move. But what went in the World Champion's favor was his composed attitude and calm demeanor. The youngster had certainly lost his pawn early, but he did not panic despite being in a visibly difficult situation. The checkmate came, and world number three Caruana had to resign after a total of tense 51 moves. Both players competed fiercely, as the game was forced to go into Armageddon tie-break, and the 19-year-old had to win as white.

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Explaining The Armageddon Tie-Break

The discipline involving the Armageddon Tie-Break is a special game that comes into the scene when the players draw a match. The timing is of greater significance during an Armageddon Tie-Break, as white gets usually 10 minutes and black gets approximately 7 minutes. But there is another twist to the tale; black only needs to draw to win the game, whereas white needs to win to emerge victorious. This discipline to decide a tie-breaker is named 'Armageddon' because it's the last, do-or-die game that normally ends up deciding the winner.

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