Indian Grandmaster Dommaraju Gukesh had tears in his eyes after defeating Ding Liren in the 14th game of the FIDE World Chess Championship. He knew what he had done. Gukesh is the youngest chess player to become world champion. Not only this, he is the second Indian who has won this title.
With Gukesh becoming the champion, a video of him is becoming increasingly viral on social media. This video of Gukesh is from the time when he was 12 years old and had not become a Grandmaster. In this, ChessBase India’s IM Sagar Shah asks Gukesh what his wish is, while answering this question Gukesh says, “I want to become the world’s youngest chess champion.”
Gukesh said these things and after that he started laughing, but seven years later, when Gukesh created history, he had tears in his eyes. China’s defending champions Ding Liren and Dommaraju Gukesh were subjected to psychological and physical tests in 14 matches spanning three weeks. During this time, there were many such occasions when the match going on between the two seemed dull and seemed to be going into a tiebreaker, but in the end Gukesh showed why he is called the king of classical chess.
Dommaraju Gukesh was born on 29 May 2006 in Chennai. His father, Dr. Rajnikanth, is an ear, nose and throat surgeon, while his mother, Dr. Padma, is a microbiologist. Coming from a Telugu family, Gukesh started playing chess at the age of seven and used to practice for an hour three days a week. After impressing his chess masters, he started participating in competitive tournaments on weekends.
Gukesh won his first prize in the Under-9 category of the Asian School Chess Championship in 2015. After that he won the World Youth Chess Championship in Under 12 category in 2018. At the young age of 12, he won five gold medals in the U-12 individual rapid and blitz, U-12 team rapid and blitz and U-12 individual classical formats at the 2018 Asian Youth Chess Championship.
Gukesh’s youth coach, Grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna says, Gukesh’s life has been like this since childhood. Everything he does is aimed at one goal: to become world champion. Unlike most people of his generation, Gukesh uses social media and the internet very little.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Vishnu had said, “Even at the age of 11, he was more serious about chess than others in his age group.” “I still felt like this guy really wanted to be something. He was very driven from the beginning. He had so much desire. He wouldn’t think about anything else. Just focused on one goal. It was kind of The passion is there. None of the kids I’ve worked with have shown what he has: passion for the game and passion to be No. 1.”
The way Gukesh does calculations as a player, it seems that he has a chip installed in his brain. He takes risks, as if he knows what the next person will do. In the last match of the championship between Gukesh and Ding Liren, which was the focus of everyone’s attention, there were many such occasions when Liren looked at Gukesh instead of looking at the board. It seemed that Liren was trying to understand the expression on his face, but it seemed as if Liren was disappointed in it.
Gukesh had lost the first game of the World Championship. Certainly he had a bad start. But not when you come prepared for every outcome. Mind guru Paddy Upton said during this time, “Gukesh had memorized the entire book of playing in the World Championship before going to Singapore.”
They suffered another setback when they lost in Game 11 immediately after taking the lead. When he was asked about this, he said, “I was ready for the fight.” During this championship, he refused to draw twice, that too in a situation when Liren had the lead.
Liren’s attempt from the very beginning was to take the game to tie breaker and he asked for a draw even after having lead in 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th games. During this time, the experts of the chess world accepted that Liren did not make a move but it was his move, but everyone underestimated Gukesh.
Suzanne Polgar had predicted many years ago that Gukesh would go far. Suzanne Polgar said, “Some people thought I was crazy for saying that… Shortly after he became a grandmaster, I noticed something very special in his playing, his approach to chess, and his behavior. He has important things that “Rarely seen in young players of this age.” He further said, “Gukesh has still not reached his chess prime and with some small changes in some key areas he can continue to dominate for years to come.”
The Chess Championship was started in 1886 and since then 17 players have won it. This includes names like Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, Vishwanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen. But when he became world champion, no one was as young as Gukesh.
In his early career, Gukesh has already created a lot of history. He is India’s youngest Grandmaster and he missed the history of becoming the world’s youngest Grandmaster by only 17 days. In March 2017, he earned the International Master title at the 34th Capel-la-Grande Open.
At the age of 12 years, 7 months and 17 days, Gukesh is the third youngest Grandmaster till date. However, Gukesh’s magic was seen in 2023. In August, he became the youngest player to reach a rating of 2750. A month later, Gukesh had overtaken Indian Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand in the world rankings. Gukesh is the first Indian in 36 years to overtake Vishwanathan Anand in the rankings.
He is the youngest-ever winner of the Candidates Tournament, which earned him a spot at the World Championship in the first place. In September, he, along with players like Arjun Erigaysi, Pantala Harikrishna, R Praggnanand and Vidit Gujrathi, helped India win its first gold medal at the Chess Olympiad.
