GM Magnus Carlsen seemed to be on his way to extending his lead in Norway Chess 2025 by another three points with a second win against World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju. In a losing endgame, however, the 19-year-old GM pounced on a blunder and turned the game around, winning it himself—his first classical win against Carlsen. GM Fabiano Caruana beat GM Hikaru Nakamura with a Black draw in armageddon, while GM Arjun Erigaisi punished an opening blunder by GM Wei Yi to win with White in their armageddon game.
GM Koneru Humpy blundered a rook in one move against GM Vaishali Rameshbabu, allowing GM Anna Muzychuk to catch her in the Women’s Norway Chess 2025 lead with an armageddon win over IM Sara Khadem. On a day of armageddons, GM Ju Wenjun won her fifth in a row in a wild time scramble against compatriot GM Lei Tingjie to move within a point of the leaders.
Round seven starts Monday, June 2, at 11 a.m. ET / 17:00 CEST / 8:30 p.m. IST.
Norway Chess Round 6 Results
Gukesh won the only classical game of the day, and we saw five armageddons.
Open: Gukesh Stuns Carlsen
If Carlsen’s win in round one was a potential “Game of the Year” according to Howell, he said that Gukesh’s win was the “Turnaround of the Year.” Thanks to the world champion, Caruana now shares the lead. Gukesh is just a point behind.
Norway Chess Standings After Round 6
Instead of Carlsen running away with it, we’re in for a close race.
Gukesh 3-0 Carlsen
Gukesh, who said he was still shaking after the game, first said: “I don’t know what happened.” Carlsen, who outplayed his opponent and made no mistakes for nearly the entire game, lost control in the time scramble.
Carlsen, on the previous day, played what he called the “Berlin Regret,” which was an attempt to turn a regular Ruy Lopez into a Berlin. Against Gukesh, though, he did the opposite: starting with a Berlin and then later playing 7…a6. By move 19, he was already optimistic, even if he assumed the position was still close to equal.
“I don’t completely understand what [Gukesh’s] concept is here. It seems to me that I just have excellent play.”#NorwayChess pic.twitter.com/ntqEpqTI4l
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 1, 2025
He went on to outplay Gukesh with near-perfect precision.
98.7 accuracy from Magnus 🤯. #NorwayChess pic.twitter.com/10WXJId43m
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 1, 2025
But Gukesh prolonged the game and kept finding move after move to survive. He said, “There wasn’t much I could do. It was just clearly lost… luckily he got into a time scramble.” Carlsen’s 44…f6?! was, at least objectively, the turning point when Black’s winning position started to unwind a little.
Even though he was worse, Gukesh continued to find only moves to keep the game going. He even said, “99 out of 100 times I would lose,” but it was “just a lucky day.” Carlsen, who already wasn’t winning anymore, dropped his knight, and Gukesh—still, with accurate play needed—went on to win. The moment of the blunder was electric:
From a winning position, Magnus blunders and now Gukesh is winning the classical game!https://t.co/7Aid1cvNlK#NorwayChess pic.twitter.com/rKQe4OqS1B
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 1, 2025
Gukesh was pleased with the win. He said, “I mean, [it was] not the way I wanted it to be, but okay, I’ll take it.” That’s our Game of the Day, analyzed by GM Rafael Leitao below.Â
The world number-one, in the emotional clip below, banged on the table before resigning. Asked about this behavior, Gukesh later said that the reaction was understandable in context and even added: “I’ve also banged a lot of tables in my career!”
OH MY GOD 😳🤯😲 pic.twitter.com/QSbbrvQFkE
— Norway Chess (@NorwayChess) June 1, 2025
Nakamura 1-1.5 Caruana
Caruana said before the classical game that he was looking for “a small measure of revenge” against Nakamura, “or at least not repeat the result of the first round.” Caruana pointed out that he wanted to surprise Nakamura on move three, where he deviated from 3…e6 (played against Wei in round two) and instead, in this game, played 3…d6.
But Nakamura wasn’t thrilled about finding out what Caruana had prepared for him. In the confessional booth, he said that he was aware 10.d5 is White’s main try but that with 10.dxe5, the move he played instead, he was going for a more “boring” game.
He explained, “I think it’s a question of whether Fabiano tries to be creative to try and create a game or else it’s just going to be a very boring draw.” We got the latter.
Nakamura needed to win with the white pieces in armageddon. Though he got his chances, they were hard to find with just a one-second increment. The last miss was 50.Rc6?, when the only winning idea was to activate the king as an attacker. Caruana held the draw by recognizing, in a pawn-down endgame, that his opponent’s a-pawn was headed for the wrong-color square.
“I was probably losing,” said Caruana after the game, “but I somehow escaped, which was a good feeling.” It’s his first armageddon win in Norway Chess this year. He also revealed that he’s been working with GM Aryan Tari for the first time, and that’s been helping him “mix it up in the opening a bit” and reach “some quite unique and interesting positions.” Carlsen approved of this duo in one of his confessions as well:
Magnus: “I wanted to give a shoutout to Aryan [Tari], Fabiano’s second… it seems that he’s in a very inspired mood because Fabi seems to have some very interesting ideas in these games!”#NorwayChess pic.twitter.com/CNOfA3k8t0
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 1, 2025
You can check out Nakamura’s video recap below.
Arjun 1.5-1 Wei
Arjun had the most convincing mini-match victory in the open tournament. After a solid draw in game one, he took advantage of an opening blunder to win easily in the armageddon.
Game one was a very solid draw in the Queen’s Gambit Declined Semi-Tarrasch. Not much happened in the symmetrical position and they traded down. Arjun said, “I thought I got something but it wasn’t anything.”
In a Semi-Tarrasch again, Arjun deviated with 6.Qa4+ and the players followed, for 17 moves, a game played two years ago between GMs Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Wesley So in Wijk aan Zee. But Wei must have misremembered something, as his first new move 17…Ke7?? is a losing blunder, and he lost a knight.
Howell put it this way: “I think the moral of the story is, you cannot take on Arjun Erigaisi head-on in an opening battle.”
Women: Muzychuk Catches Humpy As Ju Wins 5th Armageddon In A Row Â
Humpy is back level with Muzychuk after the day’s armageddon drama, but Ju and Vaishali are well within striking distance with four rounds still to play.
Norway Chess Women’s Standings After Round 6
Ju 1.5-1 Lei
The Women’s World Champion and defending Norway Chess Women’s Champion seems to like armageddon, since she’s taken all six of her mini-matches to the all-or-nothing format. The one match she failed to win was in the first round against her compatriot Lei, but in the round-six rematch she got her revenge—after a classical game that featured no incidents as it ended in a 22-move draw by repetition.Â
The armageddon, meanwhile, was wild. Ju, playing White and needing to win on demand, built up a big advantage and seemed to be massaging it carefully to victory—until the “brilliant” 34.Nxd5? proved to have a huge tactical flaw.
After 34…exd5 35.Rxd8 Black didn’t need to capture back on d8 but played 35…Rxf3!. From there on, it was mainly about the clock, with Lei catching up in the closing stages so that it was Ju making moves with a second on her clock.
Ju was winning in the final position, but if Lei hadn’t offered her hand in resignation, it’s completely unclear what would have happened! On the final move, Ju also pressed the clock with her left hand after moving with her right, as GM David Howell pointed out, though that would prove to be far from the day’s greatest chessboard etiquette failure.
Ju Wenjun wins a crazy Armageddon time scramble to get revenge against Lei Tingjie and make it 5 Armageddon wins in a row for the Women’s World Champion! https://t.co/flaz3Vl0Ro#NorwayChess pic.twitter.com/jcxvHkOLcf
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 1, 2025
Ju said afterward that she’ll aim to win at least one classical game in the remaining four, even if it means taking some risks.
Vaishali 1.5-1 Humpy
That was an incredibly tense finish to an armageddon game, but the drama in Vaishali-Humpy had more shock value. Humpy was an exchange up with Black and just needed to play carefully to make the draw that would mean victory in the mini-match. Instead with 42…Rb1?? she dropped a rook in one move.
Humpy hangs her rook in an equal position and loses the Armageddon against Vaishali — so that Anna Muzychuk catches her in the lead! https://t.co/Btc23hWxXo#NorwayChess pic.twitter.com/9FTxhZJix2
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 1, 2025
It was tough on Humpy, but perhaps a fair outcome considering Vaishali had had most of the chances in the classical game, as early as move 14 and even in the final position, which was either a fortress or winning for White.
Khadem 1-1.5 Muzychuk
That miss for Humpy meant that Muzychuk was able to catch her in the lead with a convincing win with the black pieces in armageddon in a clash with Khadem that was the day’s quietest encounter.
Khadem was satisfied, however, since she’d applied pressure in the classical game, and certainly played better than in the one game that she’d actually won:
The other days it was far from the level that I used to play, so I was very sad about my other games. Even against Lei that I won, I didn’t play good. But I think today was ok!
The tournament is perfectly poised with four rounds to go, with Humpy and Muzychuk just one point ahead of Ju and 1.5 points ahead of Vaishali. It will likely all come down to the classical games, with Muzychuk summing up when asked about the importance of armageddon wins: “They are important, but of course wins in the classical are much more important!”Â
Colin McGourty contributed to this report.
All eyes will be on Carlsen on Monday in his game against Nakamura. Will we see a wounded beast or a reinvigorated one? Gukesh, on the other hand, will face Arjun, who has won six times against him and lost zero. Caruana, too, has a good score against Wei.
In the Women’s, the two leaders will clash: Humpy vs. Muzychuk.
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How to watch?
Norway Chess 2025 features Open and Women’s six-player tournaments for equal prize funds of 1,690,000 NOK (~$167,000). It runs May 26 to June 6 in Stavanger, with players facing their opponents twice at classical chess (120 minutes/40 moves, with a 10-second increment from move 41). The winner of a classical game gets three points, the loser, zero; after a draw, the players get one point and fight for another half-point in armageddon (10 minutes for White, seven for Black, who has draw odds).Â
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