Gukesh comes from nowhere to become the king and starts his era

Mumbai, Dec 12 (IANS) In a sport in which age is just a number, a nine-year-old can hope to become a Grandmaster and a 50-year-old can aspire to win the biggest title. But the World Champion in the classical format is still a revered deity and usually a player with years behind him.

In the history of the World Chess Championship stretching from 1860 till date, chess has had only 17 World Champions in the classical format with Garry Kasparov of Russia being the youngest World Champion at 22 years, four decades back in1985.

On Thursday, 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju broke the glass ceiling and became the 18th World Champion and youngest ever, beating China's Ding Liren of China in a 14-game World Chess Championship final match in Singapore, capitalising on a blunder from a drawish position by his opponent in the 14th and last game to win the 2024 World Chess Championship match 7.56.5.

This completes a remarkable and magical journey for Gukesh who watched the Indian chess legend Viswanathan Anand lose the World Chess Championship in their home town Chennai to Magnus Carlsen of Norway in 2013. He vowed to one day bring back the World Chess Championship title to India.

On Thursday, Gukesh fulfilled that dream by beating Ding Liren in the winner-takes-all 14th and final game at the Resort World Sentosa in Singapore, capping an incredible year in which he became the youngest winner of the Candidates Tournament, helped India win the gold medal in the 2024 Chess Olympiad in Budapest and also won a gold medal at the Olympic, finishing with 9 points in 10 rounds. He had the highest performance rating of 3056 among all players in the tournament.

Born in a Telugu-speaking family in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, on May 29, 2006, Gukesh learned chess from his cousins at the age of seven and was soon beating those who taught him the game.

Seeing his potential, his ENT surgeon father Dr. Rajinikanth and mother Dr. Padma, decided to help him pursue his dream of playing chess. One of them started accompanying Gukesh as he started playing the junior and age-group circuit, becoming the World Champion in two categories -- U-9 in 2015 and U-12 in 2017.

After initial success as a subjunior player, Gukesh took up coaching with Grandmaster Vishnu Prassana and his life changed as this student of Velammal Vidyalaya School, Chennai transformed into a champion player and went on to become the second-youngest Grandmaster in the history of the game at the age of 12 years, 7 months, and 17 days. The record has since been beaten by Abhimanyu Mishra, making Gukesh the third-youngest GM ever.