They'll tell you that D Gukesh lost to world No.1 Magnus Carlsen in the first leg of the Chess World Cup quarterfinal at Baku, Azerbaijan. They'll tell you that the Norwegian showed he is levels above the 17-year-old Indian. They’ll tell you that the endgame went exactly as expected. What they won’t tell you is that Gukesh, whose live ELO rating is 2757.2, hardly put a foot wrong against Carlsen (Elo rating 2844) and still lost.

So, how exactly did that happen? To begin with, Gukesh sprang a surprise by opening with the London system. He doesn't usually play it but to bring it out against Carlsen also struck one as odd because he is one of the main proponents of the London.

They'll tell you that D Gukesh lost to world No.1 Magnus Carlsen in the first leg of the Chess World Cup quarterfinal at Baku, Azerbaijan. They'll tell you that the Norwegian showed he is levels above the 17-year-old Indian. They’ll tell you that the endgame went exactly as expected. What they won’t tell you is that Gukesh, whose live ELO rating is 2757.2, hardly put a foot wrong against Carlsen (Elo rating 2844) and still lost.

So, how exactly did that happen? To begin with, Gukesh sprang a surprise by opening with the London system. He doesn't usually play it but to bring it out against Carlsen also struck one as odd because he is one of the main proponents of the London.

Still, it seemed to serve its purpose and Carlsen took his time playing his early moves. Gukesh was blitzing through them – confident of his preparation – and built a big pawn center early.

The question on the minds of all those following the game was essentially simple: how deep was Gukesh’s preparation?

Carlsen would know the main lines, having played the system so often. And unless Gukesh had something up his sleeve, the 32-year-old would eventually catch up. And then he did. The game truly began at that point. By the 12th move, the queens were off the board. Carlsen likes to do this against younger players. It allows him to make the most of his positional genius.

It was a case of brilliant judgement by Carlsen. He weathered the early storm and the spirit of Gukesh, then made it a level situation. But white would have been expecting more after getting the opening preparation out. Psychologically, it would have hit Gukesh a bit.

From that point on, he pushed Gukesh into tough positions; those that required an almost inhuman amount of calculation... something that Stockfish would get right but with pressure mounting, the young Indian felt himself falling behind.

The manner in which the world No.1 took the sting and energy out of the game showed why he remains the player to beat. He wasn’t about the big moves, rather he was prepared to play the patient, strategic game – showing Gukesh this isn’t Blitz or Rapid; time doesn't force an error here.

While Gukesh seemed to lose his sense of purpose a bit after the opening flurry, Carlsen seemed to know exactly what he wanted to do. He led the youngster to his preferred setting and then played an endgame of such immaculate genius that the writing was on the wall. There was no big blunder by Gukesh, but he kept falling behind in the rook endgame before the game ended after 48 moves.

Fighting mood

Gukesh gave it a go, had come with a plan, but at the end of it Carlsen showed it would take more than that to beat him. “I felt really, really good before the game; I was in a fighting mood for sure,” said Carlsen. “And thus I was really happy with his choice of opening going to 2. Bf4. I thought how can I get my setups here and decided to go with 2... b6 because I didn't know any theory but realised that that the only way to punish it is to play Nc3... Bb7 and I thought let's go from there... intuitively, it doesn't look bad and certainly very playable."

Carlsen added: “Then he made the decision to go for the endgame which I think was quite alright, but I was pretty happy with that as well since there was some imbalance in the position and it didn’t feel like I was in any particular danger.” It wasn’t all bad for Gukesh but at a certain point, he seemed like he was trying to force things a little.

“Later on, he probably made a decent choice trying to exchange pieces but I also thought he could have played more enterprisingly there. He should have probably not gone into the rook ending. Even the rook ending was probably a draw, but it gets more and more difficult," said Carlsen. An endgame only has a set of finite correct moves. Find those with precision and you’ll survive or even win. Don’t and things go bad very quickly, especially if you are playing Carlsen.

“I wasn’t thinking about a win or a draw. I only knew there were chances,” Carlsen shrugged. “I was just making the moves that were logical and if he had found a lot of precise moves that it is probably a draw, if he doesn't...” It isn't all over for Gukesh. He will have a chance to do to Carlsen what Carlsen did to him by winning with black pieces on Wednesday. It won’t be easy but perhaps the lessons learnt in the first leg might show him the way forward.