Sergey Sklokin has defeated reigning global title holder Gukesh Dommaraju at the World Blitz Championship in Doha<\/p>\n
A 12-year-old Russian chess prodigy scored a stunning upset over the reigning world champion at the World Blitz Championship in Doha, Qatar. Sergey Sklokin, a significant rating underdog, beat 19-year-old Indian Grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju on Friday.
\nSklokin is merely a FIDE Master, two rungs below the grandmaster title in chess. Blitz is played at a time control of just three minutes for the entire game, plus a two-second increment per move, making time management as crucial as strategy.
\nThe decisive moment came on move 70. With just eight seconds on his clock, Gukesh inexplicably rejected a straightforward rook exchange that would have led to a drawable ending and decided to keep the pieces on the board. However, he misplayed the position and Sklokin capitalized, forcing a resignation from Gukesh ten moves later.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Russian-directed film makes Oscars shortlist<\/p>\n
This marks Sklokin\u2019s third consecutive victory at the tournament, placing him among the early leaders. The championship, which concludes on December 30, follows a Swiss system over 19 rounds.
\nAhead of the defeat, Gukesh, who is the youngest classical world champion in history but is not known as a strong blitz player, had stated that he did not have a \u201clot of expectations\u201d for the rapid and blitz events, aiming instead to \u201cexperiment, enjoy and play chess with the aim of having fun.\u201d
\nVice President of Russia\u2019s Chess Federation Sergey Smagin, meanwhile, has said that Sklokin\u2019s victory was \u201cvery pleasing,\u201d but noted that the blitz format often allows lower-rated players to surprise top-ranked masters.
\n\u201cSergey Sklokin is a good boy; we\u2019ll see what his future holds. He still has a lot of work to do. But in any case, victories like these are nice,\u201d Smagin told Match TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sergey Sklokin has defeated reigning global title holder Gukesh Dommaraju at the World Blitz Championship in Doha A 12-year-old Russian chess prodigy scored a stunning upset over the reigning world…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t