Historical past was made within the small island of Sentosa right here on Thursday, as D Gukesh grew to become the youngest world chess champion ever after defeating Ding Liren of China within the last sport of their match. The 18-year-old from Chennai broke the report held by the Russian Garry Kasparov for almost 4 many years.
Together with his victory towards the defending champion, which got here after 58 strikes, Gukesh took his factors tally to 7.5 factors. That was the requirement for a participant to win the World title. If the 14th sport had resulted in a draw, a collection of tie-breaker video games of velocity chess had been scheduled to be performed on Friday. The sport was heading in direction of a draw actually, till Ding made a deadly error on the fifty fifth transfer together with his rook. There was no coming again for the Chinese language Grandmaster after that.
This was the first-ever World championship match contested by two Asian nations. And it was a match between the gamers from India and China, the world’s two most populous nations and the continent’s superpowers.
Third Asian to win the championship
Gukesh is just the third Asian to win the World championship. Viswanathan Anand, who’s now a mentor for Gukesh, was the primary, and Ding the second.
Gukesh can be solely the 18th world champion in historical past, which dates again to 1886. That there have been solely 17 undisputed world champions earlier than him places into perspective the enormity of the achievement.
His marketing campaign had begun on the mistaken foot, although. He misplaced the primary sport, regardless of having white items (thought of barely advantageous often). The second sport was drawn, and Gukesh received the third to equalise the match at 1.5-1.5.
All the next seven video games had been drawn. Then Gukesh received the eleventh sport to take the lead for the primary time within the match, however Ding struck again instantly to attract degree. That meant the match would go to the bitter finish, opposite to the expectations of most high gamers, who had tipped Gukesh because the clear favorite, based mostly on present type.
By advantage of being the champion, Ding, who defeated Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi in final yr’s World title match, had booked his flight ticket to Singapore. Gukesh certified for the World championship by profitable the qualifying event — the candidates, which was held earlier this yr in Toronto.
Performed a serious function
There have been two different Indians within the candidates (R. Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi), in addition to two within the girls’s occasion (Koneru Humpy and R. Vaishali). After that, Gukesh went on to play a serious function in India’s beautiful twin triumph on the Chess Olympiad in Budapest.
India’s males’s and ladies’s groups received the workforce gold. Solely two different nations had executed it earlier than — the erstwhile Soviet Union and China.
Gukesh performed on the top-board (the place each nation would often subject its greatest participant) and received the person gold. Again in 2022, he had clinched the identical medal on the Chennai Chess Olympiad, profitable an unimaginable eight video games in a row.
That was the turning level in his profession.
