Loudmouth Carlsen humbled after loss to 'presumably weaker' Gukesh in Grand Chess Tour

Magnus Carlsen was left embarrassed at SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia 2025 in the Grand Chess Tour after losing to reigning world champion and Indian chess star D. Gukesh. Carlsen, who had an infamous incident with Gukesh recently at Norway Chess, had questioned the world champion's abilities in rapid and blitz format and had said in a chat with organisers: “Gukesh hasn’t done anything to indicate that he’s going to do well in such a tournament.” Carlsen's statement, however, proven wrong as Gukesh beat Carlsen in round 6 of the rapid format and now leads the points table with 10 points from five wins in a row.

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What Carlsen said after losing to Gukesh?

Carlsen was more humble in his opinion of Gukesh after the loss on July 3 and said in an interview with Take Take Take: “No, I've played kind of poorly the whole tournament and this time I got soundly punished. I think I had a very, very nice position. He took his chance to open up a position with c6. After that it was a little bit , like earlier, where I get short of time.

"I can't really handle it that well. And he found a lot of really, really good moves. And I think he did that part very well. I think I had one kind of last chance at some point to bail out to something that was very draw-ish. And I thought, well, let's continue playing. And then a couple of minutes later, I was pretty hopelessly lost. So, it was poor, but all credit to Gukesh. He's playing well and he's taking his chances too.”

What happened between Gukesh and Carlsen in Norway?

On June 1, Carlsen had lost to Gukesh in round 6 of Norway Open and slammed the chess table in frustration. The video of Carlsen's attitude, which can already be described as quirky the most times, went viral with netizens slamming him for the behaviour.