Gukesh overcomes Erigaisi challenge to jump to 2nd spot in Norway Chess after victory against world No.1 Magnus Carlsen

World champion D Gukesh, 19, turned a difficult position into a win, beating compatriot Arjun Erigaisi for the first time in a classical game. With this win in round 7 of the Norway Chess tournament, he moved into second place on his own. It comes after a nerve-wracking victory against defending champion and world No.1 Magnus Carlsen.

As has been the trend in Gukesh's campaign in this elite six-payer double round-robin tournament, the teenager, playing with white, showed nerves of steel to secure his second consecutive win, without going through the rigmarole of an Armageddon tie-break, to take sweet revenge for his loss to Erigaisi earlier in Round 2.

The win saw Gukesh overtake the 34-year-old Norwegian on the points table with 11.5 points. This was also Gukesh's first win in three attempts against Erigaisi, who had beaten the world champion at the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk Aan Zee to spoil his title-winning chances, and then again in Round 2 here.

With three more rounds to go, pole sitter American Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana, who defeated Wei Yi of China, is on 12.5 points.

Carlsen is third with 11 points following his Armageddon win against another American Grandmaster and world No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura, who is fourth with 8.5 points.

Erigaisi dropped to fifth position with 7.5 points following the loss, while Wei Yi is placed sixth with 6.5 points.

For the first three-and-a-half hours of the game, Gukesh was on the defensive but finally managed to up his game to earn a win, tying down his opponent in time trouble. Erigaisi faltered that wee bit, which gave Gukesh an opening that he exploited and forced his opponent to resign after some intense play.

"Probably I was just losing it at some point. I was just slowly getting outplayed. From the opening nothing went my way but once I got to this position I just had to keep making moves which doesn't lose on the spot and in the time scrambles things happen," Gukesh told the broadcaster after the match.

Gukesh's coach Grzegorz Gajewski reacts

Analysing the game, Gukesh's Polish coach Grzegorz Gajewski said, though it was not the best game played by the reigning world champion but he was happy that he had pulled it off, mentioning, “Probably not his best game ever, at least not the first half of the game, but definitely a very good second half of the game, so happy with that.”

On whether the win on Monday was because of a change of mindset following Gukesh's come-from-behind victory against Carlsen on Sunday, Gajewski said, "When you're in such trouble (as in Sunday’s game) and you keep fighting and you get rewarded for it, you have even more faith that it makes sense to keep fighting. "So, on the very next day (against Erigaisi), when you're again in trouble, you definitely know what to do, you just keep fighting," he added.

He further stated that Gukesh was aiming for playing the perfect games, where the margin of error was bare minimum, which was finally contributing to his success here.