Chess Olympiad Round 9: D Gukesh pulls a Houdini, keeps India in gold medal race

Chess Olympiad Round 9: D Gukesh pulls a Houdini, keeps India in gold medal race World champion turns tables on Alexander Donchenko to support India snatch a 2.5-1.5 win against Germany.

Key points

• 5 min read New Delhi Sep 25, 2026 11: 34 PM IST.
• Gukesh reacts during Round 9 of the Chess Olympiad.(Rafal Oleksiewicz/FIDE).
• There were no icy stares throughout the board, no trademark strolls with hands buried casually in trouser pockets, and no quiet aura farming over a sip of water.

There were no icy stares throughout the board, no trademark strolls with hands buried casually in trouser pockets, and no quiet aura farming over a sip of water. For more than five agonising hours of the ninth round, D Gukesh was stripped of his usual unflappable swagger, consumed entirely by the suffocating heat of a lost position and an inspired Alexander Donchenko pushing his team of giant-slayers Germany toward another famous scalp.

With Nihal Sarin having already split the point, and neither R Praggnanandhaa nor Arjun Erigaisi ceding an inch of ground in their stubborn, deadlocked battles, India's gold-medal defence at the 2026 Chess Olympiad was slipping away by the second. What followed was daylight robbery from a 54-move Houdini act by the world champion that flipped certain defeat into a miraculous turnaround, snatching an improbable 2.5-1.5 victory from the jaws of defeat and keeping the champions alive in Samarkand.

Taken together, the developments around chess Olympiad Round 9: D Gukesh pulls a Houdini, keeps India in point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.