Grandmaster Gukesh: Naughty teenager, and new poster boy for Indian chess

Among him, Nihal Sarin, R Praggnanandhaa and Raunak Sadhwani, Gukesh has the most flexible game. He has great positional sense and can oscillate between attack and defence. He’s not only unafraid of laying traps but also knows when to pull himself out of one.

Dommaraju Gukesh has already experienced quite a few highs and lows. He became India’s youngest Grandmaster but missed becoming the world’s youngest GM by just 17 days. He won gold at the Chess Olympiad this year and was on an 8/8 streak before throwing away a crucial game. And he’s just 16.

Ever since becoming a GM in 2019, Gukesh has sent shockwaves around the world with his performances, including becoming the youngest person to beat five-time world champion, Magnus Carlsen.

But he’s just 16. While for the world he’s a chess prodigy, at home, his mother says, he’s allowed to really “act his age”. That includes worrying his grandmother by tossing toys at her and making her scream, and just “being a naughty kid at home.”

Cricket or chess?

Being an only child meant that Gukesh was given a lot of attention growing up but having a microbiologist mother and an ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeon father also meant that his parents had quite a hectic schedule. They had to plan their schedule a week in advance to see who would be able to pick him up from school.

“Generally I would go and pick him up, but the problem was I could only reach 15-20 minutes after his school ended,” his father Rajnikanth tells The Indian Express.

Not wanting to leave him alone, his parents decided that they would enroll him in some after-school extracurricular activities. The conundrum was which one.

Gukesh, his mother says, was a very naughty kid (the cute kind) who loved cricket and other outdoor sports, and so the gentleman’s game was a natural choice.

“But my wife knew that Gukesh had a phenomenal memory and could grasp concepts very easily. And it was she who suggested that instead of an outdoor sport, we enroll him in chess,” Rajnikanth says.

For a kid who loves outdoor sports to play a game like chess, which requires tremendous discipline, could be a drastic change but Gukesh’s mother says discipline is something he never lacked.

“When it came to his school and studies, he was always independent. Right from the first standard, we never had to tell him to do his homework. It was quite a blessing for us too. We had no problem with his naughtiness because we knew he was very disciplined when it came to his school work,” his mother Padma says.

Zeroing in on chess as his extracurricular activity was one of the best decisions his parents have made for him. It’s been a decade since that decision, a decade of struggle, uncertainty, and exhilaration.

The beginning

For that early spark of talent to be recognised is sometimes the most difficult part. Thankfully for Gukesh, his early chess tutors realised that he was great at understanding moves and developing his own attacking play.

“The teachers lavished praise on him, saying his play was very good. Even without really teaching him, he was playing attacking chess. At home, he played with his cousins and we could see that he would not allow anything to distract him when he was playing,” Padma says.

While Gukesh was winning matches and some small tournaments, he lacked proper mental conditioning. “He would get to the final stages of tournaments but would not be able to close it out,” says his dad. So to take his game to the next level, in 2017, his parents decided that they needed a personal tutor for him, someone who has seen it all. They opted for GM Vishnu Prasanna, who had begun coaching professional chess players just a year earlier.

That had an immediate impact. Gukesh started notching up results that made heads turn. He had won the Under-9 section of the Asian School Chess Championships in 2015, but his big triumph was the 2018 World Youth Chess Championships in the Under-12 category. That year was huge for Gukesh.

After winning five gold medals at the 2018 Asian Youth Chess Championships, in the U-12 individual rapid and blitz, U-12 team rapid and blitz, and the U-12 individual classical formats, he completed the requirements for the title of International Master in March at the 34th Cappelle-la-Grande Open.

“When I first saw him, I had no doubt about his talent. He was not your typical 11-year-old. He would study tricks and tactics and wanted to finish games quickly by playing attacking chess. His positional chess sense was exceptional,” Prasanna tells this paper.

In what is a bit unheard of nowadays, Prasanna refused to allow Gukesh to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to develop his game. In fact, it wasn’t until he became a GM that he started using AI.

Calm after the norm

In the latter part of 2018, Gukesh suddenly began to slow down, just as he started approaching a rating of 2700, which would make him a Grandmaster. Not just a Grandmaster, it would make him the youngest–ever GM. His dad says it was a testing time for Gukesh as he was nervous about losing to lesser-ranked players.

“When you haven’t become a Grandmaster, you have to play smaller events and compete against players ranked sometimes much lower than you. If you lose to them, your ranking takes a huge hit. That’s what perhaps was playing on his mind in late 2018. He had many opportunities, but couldn’t take it. It was a huge learning for him,” Rajnikanth says.

Gukesh eventually missed Sergey Karjakin’s record by just 17 days, becoming the then-second-youngest Grandmaster in history on January 15, 2019, at the age of 12 years, 7 months, and 17 days.

After that, Gukesh has become more level-headed, feels Prasanna. “Earlier he would get flustered and angered after every loss. He would take time to analyse what he could do differently. He’s different now. He’s able to recover well after a hard loss and he doesn’t get too excited about any win,” 33-year-old Prasanna says.

That he doesn’t get too excited even about big wins was quite evident when Gukesh said he could do much better after becoming the youngest player to beat Carlsen in a game at the Aimchess Rapid Tournament.

“Beating Magnus is always special, but I was not very proud of that game,” he had said in his post-game analysis. Carlsen had the upper hand in a double-edged position, when an innocuous-looking move turned the tables in favour of Gukesh.

While he didn’t celebrate, it was the first time since the Chess Olympiad in August that Gukesh could smile.

At the Olympiad held in Chennai, he was adjudged the best player for his record-equalling streak of eight wins in eight games, but it was a loss that had haunted him. He had combusted against Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov, just as India seemed on the brink of defeating the eventual champions. For much of the match, Gukesh was winning, before it came to a drawing position, whereupon his opponent offered a draw. He refused and got beaten. He felt devastated and shut himself in his room.

“Yeah we won a medal, I won a medal but the bronze would have been a gold, but for the mistake I made. I was very angry at myself, and that hurts me,” Gukesh had said.

Prasanna says that was the lowest he’s seen him. “Thankfully Vishy sir (Viswanathan Anand) was there and consoled him. He told him these are very small hurdles and it’s part of chess. Those words really encouraged him,” Prasanna says.

Gym, meditation, comedy

For a 16-year-old to be travelling across the world and competing against players sometimes double his age is a huge ask but his dad says that routine works wonders for Gukesh.

“Would you believe that he spends an hour and a half in the gym every day?” asks his father, who had to completely give up his practice in 2017 to accompany Gukesh for his tournaments.

“He does meditation and also watches comedy series. People think that chess players are serious. It’s quite the opposite.”

His dad didn’t mind giving up his practice to focus on Gukesh’s career despite times being hard financially. “We had savings and took loans. We believed in him, and it’s paying off,” Rajnikanth says.

There’s only one thing he wishes he could change though. While Gukesh travels to picturesque destinations for events, all he and his dad see is the inside of the chess hall. And that’s what Rajnikanth wishes to change more than anything. “Imagine being in Paris and not going to see the Eiffel Tower. But that’s how it is. The focus is entirely on chess,” he says.

From just going from one tournament to the other, his dad would choose to decide his entire calendar now. From going for chess classes daily to choosing when he needs to be coached, Gukesh’s five-year plan has outstretched his imagination.

Gukesh was in the top 100 in April. By August, he was in the top 20. Something says he’s just getting started.