World chess champion D Gukesh of India gave a significant boost to his chances of winning the Tata Steel Chess 2026 by beating Thai Dai Van Nguyen in the fifth round to secure his first victory.
World chess champion D Gukesh was a relieved man as he clinched his first win of the Tata Steel Chess Masters 2026 on Wednesday, beating Czech Grandmaster Thai Dai Van Nguyen with black pieces. The grinding win gave Gukesh a real boost in his aim to win the ‘Wimbledon of Chess’ at Wijk aan Zee as he jumped to the joint second position.
After narrowly missing a win in the first match against FIDE World Cup winner Javokhir Sindarov, Gukesh had played out draws against Jorden van Foreest, Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanandhaa.
Gukesh: ‘Nice to get a win after draws and before a rest day’
Reflecting
on his win over Thai Dai Van Nguyen, Gukesh said he was happy with how grinded out a positive result despite playing with black pieces.
“It feels good. I was supposed to win the first one, but I missed by a whisker. I am pretty much happy with most games so far,” Gukesh said. “But I didn’t get a win, so I was expected to get it at some point. Today it was a nice grind. Nice to get a win after draws and before a rest day.”
Reflecting on missing out on a win against Sindarov after a 78-move game, Gukesh said that the tiredness from a long match did not allow him to be disappointed.
“One thing that helped was that it was so long that I was too tired to be upset,” Gukesh said. “Of course, I would have preferred to win, but it’s a 13-game tournament, so there will be some one-two results which would be disappointing. Against Jordan, I also wanted to push better, but I was in a bit of trouble. So the first two rounds was little bit shaky in that sense, but after I warmed up, it has been good.”
A large number of fans have been turning up at Tata Steel Chess 2026 to meet him. Talking about his popularity, Gukesh said: “It is always nice to see so many people who are actually coming to the venue and watching the classical game. It’s not easy.
“When you have disappointing results and you see so many people waiting for you, you don’t want to disappoint them, but you are yourself disappointed, so it’s a bit tricky, but especially there are so many kids here and for me it’s always nice to see that most of the fans are always Indians.”
He signed off by saying, “Any tournament I play, I want to win. I will be trying my best.”
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