Gukesh’s Grand Swiss woes: Can struggling world champion bounce back in Samarkand, win title?

D Gukesh was expected to conquer a wide variety of chess tournaments this year, from the prestigious Tata Steel Chess and Norway Chess to the inaugural Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, after becoming the youngest Classical world champion in the history of the sport. However, while 2025 started positively with a runner-up finish at the Tata Steel Chess in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands, things have gone from bad to worse for the 19-year-old Indian Grandmaster.

Gukesh was widely expected to challenge for the title at the FIDE Grand Swiss, where the top two players qualify for next year’s Candidates. While the teenager doesn’t need to bother himself with Candidates qualification, being the world champion, he wanted to prove himself in the world’s strongest Swiss-style tournament.

Hat-trick of losses in FIDE Grand Swiss

His career graph, however, has hit a new low in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand, where the tournament is taking place, with Gukesh suffering a hat-trick of losses after starting his campaign on a positive note.

After collecting two wins and as many draws in the first four rounds, Gukesh lost to American GM Abhimanyu Mishra – the latter becoming the youngest player to win a classical match against a world champion at the age of 16.

The defeat, however, was by no means a one-off, with Gukesh also losing against Greek GM Nikolas Theodorou as well as Turkish GM Ediz Gurel in his next two outings, completing a hat-trick of losses in the process. And with each defeat, Gukesh appeared increasingly frustrated with himself.

Can Gukesh bounce back in Samarkand? 

Gukesh faces fellow Indian GM Divya Deshmukh – who had recently beaten Koneru Humpy to win the FIDE Women’s World Cup in Georgia – in the next round. As for his current position on the leaderboard, he has fallen a long way off to joint-sixth with 3 points out of a possible 7.

And while a victory over Deshmukh will no doubt lift his spirits after his horror run in the last three rounds, it might not be enough for him to enter the top three. Compatriot Nihal Sarin and German GM Matthias Bluebaum, after all, currently lead the standings with 5.5 points each and the former is on a roll with a hat-trick of victories in the last three rounds – the complete opposite of how Gukesh’s has fared during the same period.

The face-off against Deshmukh, however, will be the first of four rounds that remain in the tournament, which carries a prize money of $625,000 in the ‘Open’ section. And a victory in each of the remaining games will take him to 7 points out of 11.

And that might give him a fighting shot at finishing in the top-half of the 116-player standings, even give him an outside chance of challenging for the title.

For that to happen, however, other results will have to go his way. Which means both Sarin and Bluebaum will have to stutter in the remaining rounds along with those who are joint-second with 5 points.

Deshmukh, meanwhile, is currently ahead of Gukesh on the standings at joint-fifth with 3.5 points. The 19-year-old, who received a wildcard entry into the ‘Open’ section, has made steady progress with two wins in her last four outings after starting the tournament with a defeat.