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Gukesh’s father Rajinikanth reveals how the team of youngest world chess champion was built

Gukesh's father Rajinikanth says he doesn't had a clue when Vincent Keymer joined Indian GM's team.

Gukesh World Chess Champion Ruslan Ponomariov

India's D Gukesh poses for photographs with the FIDE World Chess Championship 2024 trophy, in Singapore, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024. Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh on Thursday became the youngest world chess champion at 18 years after beating Ding Liren of China. (FIDE/Eng Chin An via PTI Photo)

Gukesh’s father Rajinikanth explained how the team of his son, which helped him become the youngest world chess champion, was built before the final showdown against Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship in Singapore.

I don’t even know when they decided to include mainly Keymer,” Rajnikanth told ChessBase India.

“I know Hari was already there in the candidates, even Hari (Pentala Harikrishna) was Gukesh’s choice for candidates. So he decided that he will take Hari and so they were working for candidates also. So I think for the candidates Hari, Radosław Wojtaszek were already there.

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“They were already part of the team. Jan Klimkowski was helping, but we never met him personally. So he was helping online, maybe he was working with Grzegorz Gajewski, all those things for the candidates. But after the candidates, he didn’t.

“Jan-Krzysztof Duda was helping him as a training partner before the candidates themselves. For the Candidates mainly the team was Hari, Radosław and Gajewski, with Duda helping for online games whenever Gukesh wanted to play some online training games. So Duda was helping. He was available for that.

“After the candidates win, then he decided Duda to have active participation. So he attended a couple of training camps when he was working with this. And Keymer joined the team because, after the camp, I think Gukesh spoke to him directly during the Rapid and Blitz in Poland and Keymer also showed interest.”