Magnus Carlsen fired a fresh salvo at the reigning world champion Gukesh, questioning the Indian teenager’s credentials in the shorter time control formats by saying that the youngest classical world champion in history “hasn’t done anything to indicate he’s going to do well in such a tournament.”
And as if in response to the comments, Gukesh started the first day of the event by ending as the joint leader of the 10-player field along with Carlsen himself. Gukesh won two of his games on Wednesday, beating Alireza Firouzja, tipped by Carlsen in the same pre-tournament interview as one of the favourites to win the title, and compatriot Praggnanandhaa, who has claimed three titles this year and has been in the form of his life so far.
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Carlsen was speaking ahead of the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia 2025, where he will face off on the board against Gukesh for the first time since that infamous table smashing incident at the Norway Chess, where he had lost his cool after suffering his first defeat in classical chess to the teenager from India. Carlsen was livid after throwing away a winning position against the Indian which resulted in him losing the game, his first loss ever in classical chess against the boy who now occupies the world champion’s throne that was so willingly vacated by the Norwegian a few years back.
But the Norway Chess tournament was a classical event while the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia 2025 will see players face off in the faster time controls of rapid and blitz where Gukesh has struggled in the past.
“Gukesh hasn’t done anything to indicate that he’s going to do well in such a tournament,” Carlsen told the organisers in an interview before the tournament in Zagreb.
“Gukesh actually played quite well here last time,” Carlsen conceded before adding: “But it remains to be proven that he’s one of the best players in such a format. This is a very, very strong field that we have here. Players like Gukesh and Anish Giri… they have a lot to prove because there aren’t a lot of players you can feast on. In the course of 27 rounds, things usually show. I hope for Gukesh’s sake that he can play better, but playing him in this tournament I will sort of approach it as I’m playing one of the presumably weaker players in the tournament actually.”
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The SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia is the third leg of the 2025 Grand Chess Tour. Besides Carlsen and Gukesh, the field will include players like Praggnanandhaa, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Fabiano Caruana, Alireza Firouzja, Wesley So, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Ivan Saric. Players will play nine rounds of rapid and 18 rounds of blitz which means Carlsen will face off against Gukesh once in rapid and twice in blitz. The rapid game will happen on Thursday, with the blitz games in the days after that.
Carlsen, who arrived at the tournament after a two-week-long honeymoon with his wife Ella, said that players like Caruana and Firouzja would be the favourites here.
After Carlsen had smashed his fist on the table at Stavanger in response to blundering away a winning position against Gukesh at Norway Chess, former world champion Garry Kasparov had joked that they will get “heavier tables” for the Zagreb event in anticipation of Carlsen playing there. When Carlsen was asked if he would check the strength of the tables before his game, the world no 1 said with a smile: “No, I plan to make good moves so that those gestures won’t be necessary.”
Asked if he had seen any of the countless memes that had emerged after the incident, Carlsen said: “I haven’t seen any memes. I mean, for me, it was a painful loss for sure. And I mean, I understand there’s going to be discourse around it, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to enjoy it. I would have much preferred to win the game the way that I should. I think overall it’s good for publicity is good for chess, but no, I don’t go around looking out for those things.”
