New Delhi: In 2017, an 11-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju shyly told ChessBase’s Sagar Shah about his dream of becoming the youngest world chess champion. On 12 December, that dream came true.
Eleven years after India’s first chess superstar Vishwanathan Anand was dethroned by Magnus Carlsen, Gukesh—a student of Anand—snatched the coveted title from reigning champion Ding Liren of China.
And his victory couldn’t have come at a better time. Sure, Vishwanathan Anand’s triumphs in the 2000s were seismic and finally put India on the global chess map. He is written about in Indian textbooks, and is among the country’s greatest sporting legends. But Gukesh isn’t just being read about—he’s being watched, move by move. Chess fandom has exploded since 2020, with more people watching the game than ever before. The interactive chess boards juxtaposed on screens have made matches far easier to follow. And popular commentators, like Sagar Shah, are keeping viewers hooked.
ChessBase’s livestream of the final World Chess Championship game had more than 1,26,000 views and became India’s top-trending gaming video in India that night; the YouTube recording has more than 4 lakh views. Even Grandmaster Anand never had such a big audience watching him play.
Even as congratulations and celebratory articles pour in, naysayers are also piping up. Some Russian critics are floating conspiracy theories and calling Gukesh’s win ‘suspicious’.
This bitterness has a familiar ring. After all, it was Anand who broke Russian domination on chess. And now his protégé is carrying the torch forward, even breaking Russian grandmaster Gary Kasparov’s age record. That is why grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of The Week.
Also Read: ‘Living my dream’: Gukesh is youngest world chess champion, 2nd Indian after Anand to hold title
The ‘horrific’ blunder
As the match neared the four-hour mark, Ding Liren had just nine minutes left on the clock, while Gukesh still had more than an hour to go. And Ding would make a blunder so huge and “horrific” that Russians are now calling his defeat ‘deliberate’.
Both players were down to their final pieces — Ding with a white rook, bishop, and pawn; Gukesh with a black rook, bishop, and two pawns. The match seemed headed for a draw, and officials at FIDE were likely getting ready for a blitz tiebreaker.
But then Ding moved his white rook to F2 in a bid to swap it for Gukesh’s. The moment the rook landed, Gukesh shifted in his seat, looked at the board, and rubbed his eyes, as if in disbelief. He knew the championship was his.
That single move turned the game. It allowed Gukesh to swap the bishops, and he would have won with a checkmate through the king and a pawn. Ding resigned, and Gukesh was crowned the world chess champion.
For many, the match will be remembered more for Ding’s collapse than Gukesh’s victory. But Ding chalked out the path to defeat all by himself. Vladimir Kramnik, who reigned as chess champion for seven years from 2000-2007 before he was defeated by Anand, declared this as the “end of chess as we know it”, calling Ding’s blithering miscalculation “childish”.
Even as naysayers try to undercut Gukesh’s victory, his superior game in classic chess cannot be questioned.
He won gold at the Chess Olympiad in August, with a historic 9/10 streak — a performance that FIDE hailed as one of the most sensational Olympiad debuts.
Gukesh’s current rating of 2783 in classic chess makes him the fifth-best player in the world as of December 2024, just one rank behind Arjun Erigaisi and ahead of his guru Vishwanathan Anand. Another Indian chess prodigy, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, currently holds rank 17.
While Gukesh’s strength is in classic chess, his rankings in blitz and rapid formats lag behind his Indian peers. He’s ranked 46th in rapid chess with 2654 points and 82nd in blitz with 2615 points, well behind Praggnanandhaa and Erigaisi, who have significantly higher ranks in both formats.
Also Read: Amritsar’s handmade chess sets are sold in US, Europe. Now, artisans are fighting to survive
Vishy’s kids
Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand launched his online chess academy in December 2020 with the aim of carrying the torch of Indian chess forward.
Modelled on the Soviet-style chess schools that produced many champions, the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy has already produced some of India’s most promising young players, including R Vaishali and R Praggnanandhaa. It’s reminiscent of the 1960s Botvinnik Chess School founded by Mikhail Botvinnik, which gave rise to several Soviet chess greats.
The academy employs grandmasters from around the world to train young players, honing their tactical and strategic skills. Dubbed “Vishy’s kids,” these next-gen players are poised to carry forward Anand’s legacy. This initiative has ensured that chess prodigies in India no longer have to struggle for resources or spend crores of rupees on their chess campaigns.
Everything is coming together for Indian chess. We now have a world champion who has boosted the game to new heights. During Covid, the Indian game has also acquired a sensational audience— and it’s only growing.
Our chess factories in Amritsar, which I reported on, are supplying chess sets all over the globe. And now we have multiple chess grandmasters— 85 now, compared to just one, Vishwanathan Anand, back in 1987.
As for the detractors, Anand has the perfect message for Gukesh: “Once you get to where he has reached, you can’t expect just one-way traffic. There would be constant scrutiny.”
The game of chess, it seems, is in perfect hands and the pieces are set.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)