(CNN) — What better birthday present for chess grandmaster Dommaraju Gukesh than to defeat world No. 1 and five-times champion Magnus Carlsen.
On his 17th birthday, the young Indian chess star defeated Magnus Carlsen in the blitz event before the Norwegian chess tournament.
After the match, the organizers gave Gukesh a cake to celebrate both his birthday and his victory.
When asked if he would prepare for the next day’s games by eating a lot of cake, he replied, “I would.”
The blitz event in which Gukesh beat Carlsen on Monday was held to determine each player’s seeding in the classic event that followed.
In the tournament, held in Stavanger, Norway, 10 players compete together in a round robin.
The winner will receive approximately US$68,400, while the runner-up will receive US$36,500.
In addition to Gukesh and Carlsen, a number of the world’s best players are competing, including Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana.
After three matches in the official tournament, Gukesh is fourth in the table, with one win, one loss and one draw.
Magnus Carlsen in the blitz test.
Carlsen occupies the eighth position, without any wins, after two draws and one defeat. Caruana leads the standings.
Last week, Carlsen won his first tournament since relinquishing the world champion title he’d held for a decade.
“It’s good to show that my retirement only lasted a couple of days,” he said after winning the Superbet Rapid & Blitz tournament in Poland.
Gukesh has grown rapidly in chess after entering the scene as a youngster.
He was 17 days away from becoming the youngest chess grandmaster in history, a title achieved at 12 years, seven months and 17 days, just a few weeks ahead of Russia’s Sergey Karjakin. Abhimanyu Mishra has since broken the record, becoming the youngest chess grandmaster at 12 years, four months and 25 days.
