Gukesh stunned by 12-year-old chess prodigy after blunder from world champion in World Blitz Championship

Sergey Sklokin, the 12-year-old who defeated world champion Gukesh in a blitz game on Monday, is seen at the World Blitz Championship in Doha, Qatar. (PHOTO: Anna Shtourman via FIDE)

World champion Gukesh Dommaraju’s 2025 touched a new low after he lost a blitz game to a 12-year-old prodigy, FIDE Master (FM) Sergey Sklokin, at the ongoing World Blitz Championship 2025 in Doha thanks to a blunder under time pressure from the teenage world champion from India.

Even though blitz is not Gukesh’s best format, there was a rating gulf of 228 ELO points between Gukesh (blitz rating of 2628) and the 2400-rated Sklokin. Gukesh is also a super grandmaster (with a rating over 2750 in classical) while Sklokin is just a FIDE Master, which is two rungs below the grandmaster title in chess.

The defeat for Gukesh, which came in the third round of the FIDE World Blitz Championship, came because Gukesh refused to play for a draw by exchanging rooks and tried to fight on.

The blunder came on move 70 when Gukesh, who was playing with black pieces, had just eight seconds left on his clock while his opponent had 13 seconds. Sklokin offered a rook exchange on move 70. Gukesh at this stage was a pawn down, so it would have made sense for him to accept the exchange and play on towards a draw.

India’s D. Gukesh during a press conference at World Rapid & Blitz Championship 2025 in Doha. (PHOTO: FIDE/Anna Shtourman)

But Gukesh opted to fight on by playing 70…Rf4. Soon, Gukesh was down a pawn and a bishop. 10 moves later, after losing his final pawn on the board, Gukesh resigned.

Grandmaster Maurice Ashley, who was doing commentary for the official FIDE stream, said that it was possibly the “blunder of the round”.

“This blunder, we can all agree, was pretty bad,” said Ashley before going on to explain: “We know Gukesh is a tremendous fighter and he hates draws. Literally hates them and will do crazy things to avoid them. But this was a little bit too much. Obviously it was time to trade rooks. He was the one who was down a pawn! He should be happy to trade rooks and go for the draw-ish position. It’s perfect (for him) because he’s not going to lose! But he’s playing for what? Unbelievable! That was absolutely insane. I was not expecting this from a world champion for sure. Gukesh’s attitude is always that he can get a victory. Sometimes it costs him!”

In the FIDE World Rapid Championship, Gukesh had managed to end in 20th position after winning six games and losing just twice. He was in fact in the leading pack at the end of the first day of the FIDE World Rapid Championship.

“I think, for me, playing well in any format is quite important and I have been taking rapid and blitz a bit more seriously this year. That being said, I think rapid and blitz events have been slightly (of a) less priority than classical events for me,” said Gukesh, 19, during the pre-tournament media interaction, where five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen was also in attendance.

“So, this is an event which I don’t have a lot of expectations. I’m here just to play, you know, just experiment, enjoy and play chess with aim of having fun,” added Gukesh.