Gukesh

Gukesh (Gukesh Dommaraju) is the 18th world champion in chess history. He defeated Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship in 2024 to become the youngest world champion in the history of the sport, which goes all the way back to 1886. At the age of 18, Gukesh was already the youngest-ever challenger for the world champion's crown in chess.

For Gukesh, becoming world champion was the culmination of a dream he had harboured since he was about seven years old, when he had watched five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand take on Magnus Carlsen in the 2013 world championship in Chennai.

Gukesh qualified for the World Chess Championship match after emerging victorious in a cut-throat eight-player Candidates tournament in Toronto.

Born on May 29, 2006, in Tamil Nadu's Chennai, Gukesh's meteoric rise in chess marks him as an outlier despite the fact that the sport is a young athlete's sport. Gukesh's rise has been attributed to his talent, relentless work ethic and fighting ability on the board.

Gukesh started playing chess at the age of seven, almost around the time that Magnus Carlsen was taking on Viswanathan Anand for the world champion's crown for the first time in 2013. In March 2019, he became the second-youngest Grandmaster in chess history, achieving the title at just 12 years, 7 months, and 17 days.

Gukesh's career was shaped by an early decision not to work with chess engines at least until he reached a certain ratings threshold. That was a decision made by his coach, grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna.

Gukesh's early coaches including Vishnu have spoken of Gukesh's seriousness and single-minded devotion for chess from an early age, which has paid dividends now.

Gukesh has also been mentored by five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand. It was Vishy Anand who suggested that the teenager start working with Grzegorz Gajewski, who had also helped Anand in the past during his World Championship conquests.

Gukesh is a player who has done exceedingly well in classical chess -- the longest time control in the sport.

In 2022, he made headlines at the Chess Olympiad in Chennai, where he led the Indian B team with a phenomenal performance on the top board, earning individual gold. The turning point of the event was Gukesh's defeat to Nodirbek Abdusattorov which helped Uzbekistan clinch gold medal. Gukesh more than made up for this defeat by leading the Indian chess team to a gold medal at the 2024 Olympiad in Budapest. Gukesh himself won the gold for the top board.

In 2023, Gukesh surpassed Viswanathan Anand's live FIDE rating, becoming India’s No. 1 chess player and breaking into the world’s top 10, which was a historic moment for Indian chess. Gukesh's rise coupled with that of prodigies like Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi, marks the arrival of a new generation of talent in Indian chess.