At just 17 years of age, Indian chess player Gukesh Dommaraju is set to make his FIDE Candidates Tournament debut on Thursday.
The Chennai-born chess prodigy, who has defeated World No 1 Magnus Carlsen twice already, will open the campaign against fellow Indian Vidit Gujrathi. Gukesh is the third youngest player, after American icon Bobby Fischer and Carlsen, to make the cut for the prestigious tournament.
The Candidates event is held to find a challenger for the world champion. Winner of 2024 edition, which will be held in Toronto, Canada from April 3-23, will take on reigning world champion Ding Liren.
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In a historic run, five Indians qualified for elite event. Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa and Gujrathi will compete in the Open category while R Vaishali and veteran Koneru Humpy have qualified for eight-player Women's Candidates event. It is the first time that any Indian, apart from Viswanathan Anand, has made the cut for the tournament.
Gukesh is being deemed as a worthy successor of legendary Indian chess player Anand, who took over India's best chess player in FIDE’s published classical charts since July 1986. In 2023, Gukesh became the first player to dethrone Anand after 37 years as India No 1.
Who is Gukesh D?
Born in Chennai in Tamil Nadu in May 2006, learned to play chess at the tender age of seven.
Gukesh's father Rajnikanth is an ENT surgeon and his mother Padma is a microbiologist. He is currently studying at the Velammal Vidyalaya, Mel Ayanambakkam in Chennai.
At the age of 16, he became the youngest player ever to beat former world champion Magnus Carlsen in 2022. He is also the third-youngest person to achieve the grandmaster title in 2019 awarded by FIDE.
Gukesh Dommaraju's chess career so far
The prodigy from Chennai won the Asian School Chess Championship in the U-9 category in 2015 and the World Youth Chess Championships in 2018 in the U-12 individual rapid and blitz, U-12 team rapid and blitz, and the U-12 individual classical categories.
Gukesh considers Viswanathan Anand as his mentor and had the opportunity of facing his idol in July in a chess match at the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia chess tournament.
While the match did not produce a result, Anand was left impressed by the youngster's focus and approach to the game.
Speaking to the Indian Express, Anand said,
I haven’t sat across from him very often. But in Zagreb when we played each other, I got to see a slightly newer side of him. He looked very cold. Very distant. I realised he was just trying to focus before the game. It’s possible he’s done this before (against other opponents), but it stood out for me because it was the first time I sat down and faced him in a competition.
In April 2023, Gukesh defeated Azerbaijan's grandmaster Misratdin Iskandarov 2-0 to qualify for the third round of the FIDE World Cup 2023.
He defeated former world number one Magnus Carlsen at the Freestyle Chess tournament on Saturday for the second time in his career. Gukesh also beat USA’s Levon Aronian in the third round and the reining world champion China’s Ding Liren in the fourth.