• How did the Chess Games between Ding and Gukesh flow? What was the difference in approach of Ding and Gukesh? What a year 2024 was for Indian Chess and Looking Ahead.

India’s D Gukesh beat China’s Ding Liren 7.5-6.5 to win the World Chess Championship held in Singapore in late 2024. The enormity of the result cannot be stated enough. 

With the win, Gukesh, aged just 18, becomes the youngest ever World Chess Champion and the 18^th undisputed World Chess Champion. He is also the second Indian World Chess Champion after his mentor, the legendary Vishwanathan Anand.

With this victory, Gukesh joins a short and elite list of World Chess Champions. The list of World Champions through history is ---

1. Wilhelm Steinitz (1886-1894)

2. Emanuel Lasker (1894-1921)

3. Jose Raul Capablanca (1921-1927)

4. Aleksander Alekhine (1927-1935, 1937-1946)

5. Max Euwe (1935-1937)

6. Mikhail Botvinnik (1948-1957, 1958-1960, 1961-1963)

7. Vasily Smyslov (1957-1958)

8. Mikhail Tal (1960-1961)

9. Tigran Petrosian (1963-1969)

10. Boris Spassky (1969-1972)

11. Bobby Fischer (1972-1975)

12. Anatoly Karpov (1975-1985)

13. Garry Kasparov (1985-2000)

14. Vladimir Kramnik (2000-2007)

15. Vishwanathan Anand (2007-2013)

16. Magnus Carlsen (2013-2023)

17. Ding Liren (2023- 2024)

18. D Gukesh (2024-25). 

Going into the match, Gukesh was the challenger and yet he was the favourite to win the title. Defending champion, Ding Liren, had not had a good year at all by his previous standards. Gukesh’s rating was 2,783 and no.5 in the world rankings. In contrast, Ding’s rating was just 2,728 and no.23 in the world rankings.

Despite this, experts were sure that it was a folly to write-off Ding, given what a dangerous player he has been over the past few years. Every player goes through a peak and a slump, and neither of these is usually a permanent state. So just going by Ding’s relatively poor record over the past year was not an indication of his deadly potential.

The format of the tournament was such that there were 14 classical games, and in case of a tie, there was going to be a faster format to determine the winner. In the classical format, if either player reached 7.5 points, he would be declared the winner.

How did the Games flow?

Ding started the tournament with a win in Game 1, and that too, with the black pieces. White is generally believed to have a slight advantage because he can decide which opening he wants to play. Gukesh bounced back with a win in Game 3. Then Gukesh won again in Game 11 following a blunder from Ding, but Ding came back strongly in Game 12 to equalize the score at 6-6.

Game 13 was a draw. So going into Game 14 both players were tied at 6.5 points each. It all came down to the last game.

Here Ding had the advantage of the white pieces. As had been the case in most games, both players played with a near perfect accuracy, and as the game went into the endgame, a draw seemed like a foregone conclusion. Then out of the blue, Ding made a blunder that allowed Gukesh to exchange a rook and a bishop, and the resulting endgame had him being up 2 pawns to 1, with a clear victory.

Ding immediately saw his mistake and resigned, giving Gukesh the title!

It had appeared through the tournament that Ding was quite content with draws in most games, because he knew the odds would be in his favour in the rapid format of the game in case the tournament went down to the wire. Gukesh, on the other hand, gave the impression of trying to push hard for a victory even when there was no clear victory in sight, and his positive approach finally paid off!

There was criticism from greats like Magnus Carlsen (the reigning world no. 1, who refused to defend his World Championship title in 2022, but remains unquestionably the world’s top rated player) and Vladimir Kramnik, who openly said that the quality of games was not befitting of a World Championship.  

There was a feeling that though both players played incredibly accurately, their game was a bit mechanical and it was like that of a computer engine. Anand was however very quick to come to Gukesh’s defence and he said no success comes without its share of criticism, so Gukesh should ignore the criticism. Gukesh won fair and square, after a tremendous year, a win in the highly competitive Candidates Tournament, and then a huge battle in the World Championship itself.

What a year 2024 was for Indian Chess.

1. India won the Gold Medal in the Chess Olympiad in Budapest in both the men’s section and the women’s section, and both these were a first for India. 

2. Three of the eight players who qualified for the Candidates Tournament in Toronto were Indians-Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa and Vidith Gujrathi.

3. Gukesh went on to win the Candidates Tournament and earn the right to challenge Ding Liren for the world title. Gukesh won the World Championship.

4. Arjun Erigaisi crossed a FIDE rating of 2,800, becoming just the 16^th player in history to do that.

5. As the year comes to a close, as per the December FIDE world chess ratings, there are 2 Indian players in the Top 5, 3 players in the Top 10, 4 players in the Top 20, 6 players in the Top 30, 8 players in the Top 50, and 11 players in the Top 100!

Looking Ahead 

The incredible thing to note is that despite Gukesh’s amazing achievement in becoming the World Champion, he’s not even India’s no.1 player. He’s just behind Arjun Erigaisi in the rankings, with Arjun at no.4 and Gukesh at no.5. The youth brigade of Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggnanandhaa and also other emerging stars like Aravindh Chidambaram and Nihal Sarin look poised to make their presence felt in world chess in the years to come. 

For both Gukesh and Erigaisi, the world no. 2 ranking is very much in sight, with world no. 2 Fabiano Caruana and world no. 3 Hikaru Nakamura being just a handful of points ahead of them. It will still take a gargantuan effort for them to catch up with world no. 1 Magnus Carlsen though, but they have age on their side (with Gukesh being 18 and Erigaisi being 21).

If their performance in the coming years goes that extra step from where it has been in 2024, the day may not be far when we have an Indian as world no.1, a feat only achieved by Anand in the past!

Author Akshay is a Gurgaon based chess coach, who teaches the game to beginners and intermediate level players. He has taught chess online, on a one-on-one basis, to well over a hundred children across India, USA, Singapore, Australia, UAE and UK. He left his corporate career and has now transformed his interest into his work, by spending time on a game he loved in his growing up years!

To read all articles by author

Editors Note – Humility, hard work and concentration are important.

Also read

1. Origin of Chess

2. Why Tamil Nadu is producing high quality chess players

3. Velammal Nexus Schools Chennai are making the Right Moves on the Chess Board

4. India’s Incredible Victory at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest