Gukesh capitalises to become youngest king after Liren stumble

The 18-year-old was up three pawns to two in a rook-bishop endgame and he was asking questions. But the questions weren’t menacing enough; mainly because Grandmasters have no problems defending this position.
After Gukesh’s 54 Ke5, the evaluation bar gave the Indian an advantage of -0.15. Or, in other words, nothing (till it goes beyond +0.5 or -0.5, it’s a game of cat and mouse and hoping your opponent doesn’t find the optimal moves for a long period).

Here, Liren didn’t even have to find the best move (55 Ra4, for those asking). All he had to do was play any of the five top moves and still be more or less equal. He made one of the worst moves possible (55 Rb2) with, perhaps, the intention of trading rooks. But when your opponent is a pawn up in the endgame and your bishop is trapped, it’s like signing your death sentence.

As soon as the 2023 world champion made that move, the evaluation bars across all engines jumped to life in favour of Black. Actually, it took him a few seconds to realise what had happened. He was about to blitz 55 Rb3 before he had his eureka moment.

So, he first calmed himself. He reached out to his water bottle to ensure he wasn’t actually imagining things on the board. “I didn’t realise (that Liren had played Rb2),” he said in the post-match press conference. “I was going to play Rb3 almost. Then I saw that his bishop is getting trapped and if he has Ke1, I have Ke5 and the pawn ending which is totally winning. When I realised it, it was probably the best moment of my life.”

Once he traded the rooks, the next few moments were proper cinema inside the fish tank. Liren had already realised his blunder and couldn’t bear to look at the board. Gukesh, who knew he was about to achieve a childhood dream, couldn’t sit still. So, he started walking all around the playing hall, like a kid next to a candy store.