D Gukesh: All the Right Moves

D GUKESH HAS BEEN growing his hair and sporting a beard of late—a look apparently inspired by MS Dhoni, a sporting icon he looks up to. The 17-year-old, who has been playing chess for a decade, is well on track to becoming an icon himself. Earlier this month, he opened his FIDE World Cup campaign with a win against Misratdin Iskandarov at the latter’s home turf in Baku, Azerbaijan, to secure a live rating of 2755.9. It was a rare milestone for the prodigy, for this meant that he had bested his mentor and Indian chess legend Viswanathan Anand’s live rating of 2754 to become India’s top-ranked chess player. If Gukesh’s live rating holds steady till September 1, 2023—when FIDE will publish the updated ratings—this will be the first time anyone has surpassed Anand in published ratings in 37 years. (In 2016, Pentala Harikrishna overtook Anand in live ratings for a day but the latter quickly won back his top spot.)

It was only days ago that Gukesh had set another record, becoming the youngest player in history to cross the 2750-mark in published ratings, beating former World Champion Magnus Carlsen’s record and that of French-Iranian prodigy Alireza Firouzja. Should Gukesh also trump Firouzja’s current record of being the youngest player to cross over into the 2800 club at 18 years of age, he would be hailed as the greatest-ever Indian chess player. There are only 14 grandmasters in the world who have a rating of over 2800 and Gukesh is razor-focused on entering this elite world. Anand, who was visibly overjoyed to be dethroned by his protégé, said while commentating in Azerbaijan that Gukesh should only focus on his game from here on.

Coach Vishnu Prasanna, who lives not far from Gukesh’s house in Chennai, is the closest the teen has to a friend. Knowing him, he will manage to keep his wits about him, Prasanna told Open after Carlsen knocked the Indian out of the World Cup in a keenly-watched quarter-final round. In game one, Gukesh, despite making no mistakes, failed to beat Carlsen at his meticulously wrought endgame. He did manage to draw the second game with Carlsen, but it wasn’t enough to snag Gukesh a spot in the semifinals. Of the 17-member star-studded Indian contingent, either 19-year-old Arjun Erigaisi or 18-year-old Praggnanandhaa is sure to advance to the semifinals, and also to secure an opportunity to play at the FIDE Candidates tournament next year. Carlsen, who played punishing chess against Gukesh, later said in an interview that he was “distraught” the teen wouldn’t get to play the Candidates. Anand, a five-time World Champion, is the only Indian to have ever played at the tournament, one of the most important in the world of chess.

If India is an emerging chess superpower, Gukesh is its young king, ravenous for experience. It is hard not to cheer for him as he plays a sharp opening against an experienced foe, to sigh when he makes the rare mistake, and to wonder when he takes a long pause, if his mind indeed rivals an engine. But, even for someone who makes precise decisions for a living, it wasn’t easy to give up on academics. “It was a difficult decision to come to terms with,” his mother, a microbiologist, told Open in Chennai last year. “He doesn’t have time for anything but chess and sleep—he even forgets to eat at times.” His father, who quit his medical practice to be his constant companion—and travel agent—said Gukesh’s competitive spirit was entirely his own.

Gukesh’s blistering rise since he became a grandmaster in 2019 is built on rigour, courage and ambition—lots of it. He crossed 2700 in ratings in 2022—the same year he dazzled the world with his eight-game winning streak in the Chess Olympiad for India 2, and beat Fabiano Caruana, the reigning American chess champion, with black pieces to enter the world top 20. A diligent player capable of preparing deep openings and employing familiar strategies and tactical motifs to his advantage, what Gukesh really craves are the moments of spontaneity that follow an unconventional move. “I am quite comfortable with unpredictability,” he had told Open. Fortunately for us, his own path to even more fame and glory looks rather certain, paved with several firsts and triumphs that will define a new era of Indian chess.

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V Shoba

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