Gukesh D, the World Chess Champion, has been having a torrid time in the Tata Steel Masters, which continued after he suffered his second defeat in a row and third in the event, going down to Anish Giri.
Before that, Gukesh was himself to blame as he made an unimaginable blunder to go down to Nodirbek Abdusatorov of Uzbekistan in the sixth round.
Speaking candidly, Gukesh D admitted he still cannot fully explain what went wrong. "The best part about the blunder is that I cannot even explain how it happened," he said. "In a way, those kinds of blunders are perhaps easier to handle than the ones you can actually explain. This just happens-I mean, shit happens."
He also acknowledged that the psychological toll extended beyond the loss to Abdusattorov. Describing his contest against Dutch No.1 Anish Giri, he said, "I was just completely off."
"I played one of my worst games in quite a while," Gukesh told the YouTube channel of the Tata Steel Chess tournament in an interview on Sunday after his win.
Earlier, after Gukesh's blunder, his opponent, Abdusattorov, spoke to the Tata Steel Chess Tournament and offered words of comfort for his opponent: "First of all, I feel very sorry for him. It's a terrible feeling. I've done it myself many times, so I know exactly how horrible that moment is."
On the blunder and overall context, the 21-year-old said, "I think this round had a few big blunders, but apart from that, I don't recall many games with such huge mistakes."
"This one definitely stands out. It was a shocking end to the game," he said before signing off.
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