World Chess Champion D Gukesh led the ‘Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown’ after Day 1. It is a short, rapid tournament featuring World Champion D Gukesh and the world’s top three players, Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, and Fabiano Caruana.
Gukesh lost 1.5–0.5 to Carlsen in Round 1, but bounced back strongly, beating Nakamura 1.5–0.5 in Round 2 and sweeping Caruana 2–0 in Round 3. At the end of Day 1, Gukesh topped the table with 4/6 points, followed by Carlsen on 3.5, Nakamura on 3, and Caruana on 1.5.
A video of one of his games against world number two, Nakamura, is going viral on social media. Watch it here:
WATCH 🎥 | GUKESH TAKES DOWN WORLD NO.2 HIKARU NAKAMURA IN CLUTCH CHESS!
– Much needed win after loss in Checkmate! 🔥pic.twitter.com/hSn0eemBWq
— The Khel India (@TheKhelIndia) October 27, 2025
Earlier this month, when Gukesh and Nakamura met in an exhibition event, ‘Checkmate: USA vs India’, their match ended with the latter winning and throwing the former’s King piece into the crowd in celebration. It was later revealed to be a staged thing, but not before a huge section of the chess community took offense to it.
“It was not an insult… If it were a serious event, like the Candidates, of course, you would never do such a thing. Nobody would! It doesn’t matter if it was Magnus Carlsen, Hans Niemann, Anish Giri, or me. But this was a purely entertainment event,” Nakamura said to defend himself, after facing severe criticism from Indians who felt he ‘disrespected’ the sport.
Gukesh refrained from commenting about the incident. Though Nakamura offered him to ‘sing a Bollywood song’ the next time he loses to the Indian, Gukesh remained calm as ever.
The Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown runs from October 25–30 at the Saint Louis Chess Club in Missouri, USA. It features nine rounds (18 games) played in three double round-robins, with points and prize money increasing in each stage — for example, Day 2 will carry double points.
The $412,000 (₹3.63 crore) prize fund includes $340,000 (₹3 crore) for standings and bonus prizes of $1,000 (₹88,260), $2,000 (₹1.76 lakh), and $3,000 (₹2.65 lakh) per win in successive round-robins. Standings prizes are $120,000 (₹1.06 crore), $90,000 (₹79.4 lakh), $70,000 (₹61.8 lakh), and $60,000 (₹53 lakh) for the top four finishers.
