The video provides a live, play‑by‑play commentary of the India‑Netherlands team match board where World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju (white) faces Dutch GM Erwin l'Ami (black). The narrator describes the pre‑game atmosphere, Gukesh’s confidence, and the stakes of the match. The opening is a Rossolimo variation of the Sicilian, with Gukesh opting for an early e5 thrust that leads to a complex middlegame. A critical mistake by l'Ami (the premature f4) allows Gukesh to launch a decisive attack, winning material and eventually an exchange. The commentary follows the endgame under extreme time pressure, highlighting Gukesh’s resourceful rook and queen maneuvers that force resignation on move 39. The win secures a 4.5/5 score for Gukesh and contributes to India’s 3‑1 overall victory over the Netherlands. After the game, the video captures fan interactions, autograph requests, and brief Hindi banter between the speakers, illustrating Gukesh’s popularity and the celebratory mood.
Chapters
The world champion Gukesh Domaraju makes his way to the game. He's here with his second and trainer Jagosh Gajewski. You can see Gukesh entering in with a lot of confidence. He is on 3.5 out of 4 and has won 2 games in a row. A lot of people come to him with autographs and picture requests, and well, Gukesh tries to oblige a couple of them. I believe he'll do most of it after the game because right now it's time for him to focus on the battle. It's a very important one along against the Netherlands, and Gukesh is playing Erwin Lamy on board number 4 in this tournament. Gukesh started off with a win against 1900, then a lot, then a draw. And you can see people coming in running, taking a selfie, and Gukesh's focus is rock solid. And well, you can can see there. If Gukesh were to stop, then a lot of people gather in, and I think before the game it's important for him to just zone in. And there you see the Dutch team getting ready for the fight. Erwin Lamy speaks with Jan Smets, the captain of the team, and Gukesh enters in. He has the black pieces. It won't be easy against an experienced campaigner like Erwin Lamy. And Erwin, of course, right now his rating has dropped a bit, he's 2595, but I believe his career high rating was close to 2670. Very strong player, winner of Reykjavik Open, has been Anish's second for a long time, so definitely an opening expert. And I think for Gukesh, a very important game because on top board we have Prag taking on Anish, a very tough fight. Arjun taking on Jordan, also a tough fight. And then Nihal against Luke Van Wely and Gukesh against Erwin Lamy is where Indians will try to strike. You can see Gukesh adjusting all his pieces. You can see a nice touch on the sleeves, right, with the AICF logo there. Look at Gukesh there, calmly just setting everything right. Puts the clock on the side. The players get ready. 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes for Gukesh closes his eyes to focus in. Just the game, just the board and him and his opponent is what he would like. Handshake and off we go. Erwin Lamy with the white pieces opens his game with pawn to e4 and Gukesh plays the Sicilian. He goes for the fighting c5. Knight comes out to f3. Always exciting to see if we will get to see an Open Sicilian or not. Knight to c6 and d4 would be Open Sicilian. Bishop b5 would be Rosolimo. He goes for the Rosolimo, a very interesting choice against Gukesh because he has great experience in this line with the black pieces. He played it a lot. Since he was a little kid. g6, castles, and now the bishop can come to g7. And Erwin goes Rook e1. One of the plans is to play c3, d4, expanding in the center, but Gukesh goes e5, capturing the center. And now Erwin takes before the knight could come to e7 and bolster the knight. And very naturally, Gukesh takes with the d-pawn away from the center but opens up the bishop on c8. We have a4 to gain space on the queenside, also stopping b6 as a5 is powerful. Knight comes to h6 with the idea of short castling. And knight to a3. The point of this move is to get the knight to c4. f6 played, strengthening the center here, and knight comes to c4. Black castles. a5 pushed ahead, gaining even more space so that the knight is comfortably placed here defending the pawn. I think at some point you can go bishop e6, queen comes to e7. And d3 played. The bishop comes to e6 looking at the knight, and now also with some ideas of b5. Although b5, ab, ab, that pawn would hang. So rook a4, by the way. By Erwin. So if you take here, he may want to take with the rook. He goes queen to c7, and after bishop d2, pushes the pawn to b5. a takes b6 taken. a takes b6. And one can see that Gukesh has kind of equalized with his knight coming back, coming here. Rook takes a8. And he takes back. Rook takes a8. We have knight to e3 played and bishop f8. Just defending this pawn. h3 played by Erwin, and the knight comes back, regrouping all the pieces to better squares. And Erwin goes knight h2. He's planning for some sort of an f4 break or knight g4 coming in. b5 played. Rook to f1, planning for f4. c4 played by Gukesh, pushing the pawn forward. Pawn takes pawn taken, and now pawn takes pawn. He takes, the bishop protects the pawn. You've kind of made your pawns isolated. Queen e2 attacking here, but I think Gukesh understands that his pieces are very nicely placed. Knight d6. And now you can see that there are some threats here in the position. c4 is attacked, but it's defended twice. Erwin goes Knight g4, attacking, uh, g6, and Gukesh plays his Bishop to g7, defending it. Maybe Queen f3 is possible to attack here. But f4 played by Erwin, a big mistake, a big mistake by him. And you can see Gukesh comes back very excited. He knows that here is his chance to strike in the position. Boom, c3! And look at Erwin, shocked. The point is he clears the c4 square for his bishop to create a skewer. f takes e5 taken. And now bishop to c4, winning move. Meanwhile, on the adjoining board, Nihal has just drawn his game. Bishop c4 attacking the queen and the rook. Queen comes up to e3, and now taking on f1 wouldn't be incorrect as this is hanging. Maybe it's also possible, but fe5, a very calm move. This bishop is hanging, rook is hanging, both are hanging. He takes bishop c3 and now picks up the rook. Gukesh is an exchange up. Erwin does have a pawn for it, but that's all, pawn only. Rook a1 check. Coming in with the rook. Gukesh has 12 minutes. They have to make 13 more moves. King comes up to e2 and rook a4, eyeing the e4 pawn, but the knight jumps back to f2 defending it. Gukesh brings his queen with the idea of queen b5 check. Queen to d3, but this means that Queen b5 is a strong move to trade off the queens, and he plays it. Queen to b5. How easy is it to convert such a position where you are an exchange up? I would say a bit tricky because Black's bishop is a bit passive, but overall White does not have too much counterplay. King d3, and now the best move is c5. He pushes c5, and the, the idea is c4, push the king back, b3. And this is a very cool idea: take, take, take, and check. And when the king goes back, you can give another check. And that would be very strong with rook coming to g3. But he went rook a8, bishop comes back to b2, and knight d4. Erwin is fighting, you know, he's not letting Gukesh win this smoothly. He takes on d4, cd, and now the b-pawn is a passer. Knight comes to f3. And Gukesh brings his king to f7. He's trying to activate his king. Both the knights attacking the e5 pawn, and king comes up to e6. Knight to g5 check. And King e7 played. You can pick up the pawn on h7, which he does, but now the knight is a bit out of play. So Rook a1 or Rook c8 are good moves. He plays Rook c8 to get Rook c3. He had 4 seconds when he made this move. We are on move 39. c4 played, very tricky move. If you take, King c2, White is back in the game. So Gukesh has to find Rook a8. He finds it, he finds with 3 seconds on the clock the best move to get the rook in and attack. c5 played to get King c4, King d5, and Rook a3 played, attacking the b3 pawn. King to c4. Rook a2. The pawn on g2 is hanging. And Erwin says, good or bad, I need to create my own play. He takes the pawn. Maybe it would have been better to give a check first and then take, but it's still fine. Knight to g5, he brings back the knight into the game. And now rook c2 check, important move. Now very key to come back, king d3, because You need to stop this pawn. Although it's tempting to go forward, but this is a big mistake by Erwin. King d5 feels like you have the pawns here and your d pawn will be stopped by the knight, but it is too slow. d3 with the idea of d2, d1. Knight comes to f3. d2 can be pushed. If you take, I take with a check. So knight comes back to f2. And now very important, what is to be played here? Bishop h6, defending the pawn and preparing rook c1. If you went directly rook c1, then knight d2 and knight c4, and even this position is very complicated. So bishop h6, Ne5, plays Rc1 with the idea of d1. Knight c4. Now d1, queen takes would be fine, but Rb1 played by Gukesh. King pawn pushes forward to c6. Now you can take the pawn, Rxb4. Any last hopes? Knight to d6 played here by Erwin, and the most powerful move is bishop e3. It's the only move. He finds it. Bishop e3 attacking the knight. If you go knight d1, I have rook check with win. So he goes c7, and well, you can't stop this from queening, but you don't need to. Gukesh takes the knight, allows his opponent to make a queen, and he himself will make a queen with a rook and a bishop. It's mate in 1. Now King c6, Queen takes d6, and resignation. Gukesh scores a very big win, and with this, India manages to beat Netherlands 3-1 with a very powerful performance. And I think Gukesh's game was really nice. He played a good opening. He pounced on his chance when it arose. Maybe his conversion wasn't the smoothest, but he did it well enough even under time pressure. At the 40th move, he found couple of very good moves— Rook c8, Rook a8— under time trouble with 3 or 4 seconds on the clock. So with this, Gukesh moves to 4.5 out of 5, and hopefully he can continue his excellent run in this tournament. We leave you with some scenes in the playing hall where Gukesh interacts with the fans after the game. It's always nice to see that Gukesh is a star in the world of chess, not just Indian chess. People all across the world want to You know, meet him, interact with him, and this is amply seen in the next few minutes.
I don't think this will go. Come, come, come. Come, come, come. Come, come. Come. I'm busy, busy. Okay. Congratulations.
Congrats.
All picture, please. Can you take a photo? Can you take? Itali.
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