16-year-old Indian GM Gukesh stuns Carlsen in Aimchess Rapid chess

Magnus Carlsen in the ninth round of the preliminary phase of the Aimchess Rapid online chess tournament, becoming the youngest to beat the world champion. The 16-year old from Chennai beat the world No.1 with white pieces early on Monday to move up to third position behind Poland's Jan-Krzystof Duda (25 points) and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan, 23 points) with 21 points after the 12th round. Gukesh's 29-move dismantling of the world champion comes a day after his 19-year old compatriot Arjun Erigaisi had posted a maiden win over the world champion.

"Gukesh just became the youngest player to ever beat Magnus after he became WC! Hats off to the 16-Year-Old Indian superstar," Meltwater Champions Chess Tour of which the Aimchess Rapid event is a part of, said on its Twitter feed. Gukesh is 16 years 4 months 20 days while the previous record before his win was R Praggnanandhaa's 39-move victory over Carlsen in the Airthings Masters in February. Pragg was 16 years 6 months and 10 days old when he defeated the world No.1.

The Indian on his part, was quoted as saying after the momentous win: "Beating Magnus is always special, but I was not very proud of that game." Gukesh suffered a setback in round 10 when he lost to Duda but bounced back superbly to beat Mamedyarova and Eric Hansen in the next two rounds. Erigaisi has as many points (21) as Gukesh and is in fourth as the race for the spot in the knockout phase gets closer. The 19-year old Erigaisi began the third day of the preliminaries with a loss to Mamedyarov before scoring over Hansen and talented German Vincent Keymer.