Five points about Gukesh, the 18-year-old who could be youngest ever world chess champion

Here are five facts about Gukesh:

Gukesh’s early start

Gukesh learned chess at the Velammal School in Chennai at the age of seven. But he has not attended school after Standard 4. Gukesh was in Standard 1 when his potential was noticed by his first chess coach Bhaskar V, during the extracurricular activities (ECA) period.

Even at that age, Gukesh was obsessive about chess.

Bhaskar introduced Gukesh to his second coach, Vijayanand, at whose academy Bhaskar was a coach. At the Vijayanand Chess Academy, Gukesh would start early, around 9.30 am. Those early days, Gukesh would be given 70 chess puzzles a day to solve. It was to help him with tactical and positional awareness on the board. After that, he would take lessons on chess theory and middle-game strategy. Classes would go on till 7.30 pm.

Gukesh and a radical experiment

As Gukesh’s strength on the board grew, he started working with grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna, who proposed a radical experiment. Vishnu suggested that the 11-year-old Gukesh not use chess engines — which every player uses these days — until he reached a certain ratings threshold. Gukesh agreed.

Thanks to that experiment, Gukesh became “quite precise in his calculations” Vishnu told The Indian Express recently.

“He has a good practical sense of what would work and what would not. He became very precise,” Vishnu said.

Gukesh’s previous brush with history

Gukesh could become the youngest ever world champion in history if he can defeat Ding Liren. Making history is not new to him. In September last year, Gukesh had become India’s top ranked player in the FIDE rankings, surpassing five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand. It was the first time in over 36 years an Indian player had been ahead of Anand in the published rankings.

Gukesh earned his FIDE Master title in 2015, and his International Master title in March 2018 – when he was just 11-years-old. Gukesh missed the chance to become the world’s youngest grandmaster by 17 days. He did set the record as India’s youngest GM when he became a grandmaster at age of 12 years, seven months, 17 days in 2019. To get there, he played about 230 games a year.

He also became the youngest winner of the Candidates tournament at the age of 17 earlier this year.

Mentored by Viswanathan Anand

Anand has been a mentor to Gukesh since his early days. The five-time world champion was the one who advised that Gukesh start working with Poland’s Grzegorz Gajewski, who used to be his own second.

Gukesh was one of the handpicked prodigies that got training under Anand’s ambitious project, the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy, which looks to replicate the Soviet Chess School.

“To play in a world championship after Vishy sir is very special. Cannot thank him enough. He’s taken it upon himself to develop the next generation. He’s the biggest reason why chess is so big in India. He’s a huge icon for me,” Gukesh recently said at the press conference.

Working with Paddy Upton

In the lead up to the World Chess Championship, Gukesh enlisted the services of renowned mind guru Paddy Upton, who has previously helped the Indian cricket team win a World Cup in 2011 and the Indian hockey team win bronze at the Paris Olympics.

“Gukesh has just been an absolute blessing and a gift to work with,” Upton had told The Indian Express recently. “I’ve just been amazed at his self-awareness and maturity. Not just his game, but his awareness about himself, his processes and his mind. He asks great questions, and is hungry to learn,” said Paddy Upton in an interview with The Indian Express.