(CNN) — What better birthday present for chess grandmaster Dommaraju Gukesh than defeating world number 1 and five-time champion Magnus Carlsen.
On his 17th birthday, the young Indian chess star defeated Magnus Carlsen in the blitz preceding the Norwegian chess tournament.
After the match, the organizers presented Gukesh with 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 hope so.”
The blitz event in which Gukesh beat Carlsen on Monday was held to determine each player’s seeding in the ensuing classic event.
In the tournament, which takes place in Stavanger, Norway, 10 players compete in a round-robin tournament.
The winner will receive approximately 68,400 USD, while the runner-up will receive 36,500 USD.
As well as Gukesh and Carlsen, a host of the best players in the world are competing, including Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana.
After three games in the official tournament, Gukesh is fourth in the standings, with one win, one loss and one draw.
Magnus Carlsen during the flash test.
Carlsen sits in eighth position, winless after two draws and a loss. Caruana leads the standings.
Last week, Carlsen won his first tournament since relinquishing the world championship title he had held for a decade.
“It’s good to show that my retirement only lasted a few days,” he said after winning the Superbet Rapid & Blitz tournament in Poland.
Gukesh quickly rose to chess after bursting onto the scene as a youngster.
He was 17 days short of becoming the youngest chess grandmaster in history, a title he achieved at 12 years, seven months and 17 days, a few weeks older than Russia’s Sergey Karjakin. Abhimanyu Mishra has since broken the record, becoming the youngest chess grandmaster at 12 years, four months and 25 days.
