Path paved by grit and determination, Gukesh emerges as champion chess player

MUMBAI: As he returns home from the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest with two gold medals -- one for the Team Championship and an Individual gold on Top Board, destiny has once again pushed Dommaraju Gukesh to the forefront.

It has generated renewed interest in World No. 7, who has cemented his claim to become the World Champion with a virtuoso performance that has left the chess World mesmerised.

Soon after Viswanathan Anand lost to Magnus Carlsen for the second successive World Chess Championships Final Match in Sochi in 2014 and cut down on his participation in the circuit soon after that, Indian fans were tormented by a few questions.

Who will take over from the five-time World Champion from Chennai? Who will fill in the huge shoes of the legendary player who has put Indian chess on the World stage in a nearly four-decade career? Will India once again have a top-10 player in World Rankings?

They got the answer to all these questions in 2024 with a golden generation of chess young chess players that includes Gukesh, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi, Nihal Sarin and Aravindh Chithambaram who have established India as the most potent chess superpower. Gukesh, Pragg, Erigaisi along with Vidit Gujarathi and Pentala Harikrishna crowned India as the champions of the 45th Chess Olympiad on Sunday, with a sensational dominant performance as the men's team won all its matches barring a draw with Uzbekistan.

Gukesh has emerged as the brightest star on the Indian chess horizon, zooming up the ranking ladder and building up a rating in the last 2-3 years, and now looks set to dominate world chess firmament for the next many years.

The 18-year-old Gukesh is now India's biggest chess star after winning the World Chess Candidates Tournament and emerging as the challenger to the reigning World Champion, Ding Liren of China. He is the youngest-ever winner of the Candidates and will be the youngest player to ever play in a World Chess Championship Final Match which will be played in Singapore from November 25 to December 16.

His brilliant performance in the Budapest Olympiad, in which he remained undefeated and finished with 10 points in 11 rounds with nine wins and two draws, has put forth Gukesh as the favourite against Ding Liren, who had a poor outing in Budapest.

Born in Chennai on March 29, 2006, in a family that traces its roots to the Godavari delta region of Andhra Pradesh. Coming from a family of doctors -- father Dr. Rajinikanth is an ENT surgeon while mother, Dr Padma is a microbiologist -- Gukesh's interest in chess and his talent and proficiency came as a surprise to his family. Dr Rajinikanth is an amateur player but there is no one else with much interest in the game in the family.

His talent was initially nurtured by chess teachers and coaches at the Velammal Vidyalaya school in Chennai, Gukesh soon earned a reputation as one of the talented young players. His interest in the game grew further when he followed the World Championship Match between Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen in his hometown in 2013.

His reputation as a chess prodigy was further enhanced when he won five gold medals at the 2018 Asian Youth Chess Championships in the U-12 individual rapid, blitz, classical, and team competitions.

Gukesh's journey to the top echelons of chess is littered with hurdles and has been paved by grit and determination with both the player and his family making huge sacrifices. Gukesh has worked 7-8 hours on chess every day, his father Rajinikanth has literally ended his career as an ENT surgeon to accompany his son on his chess journey and the family has been surviving on the sole earnings of his mother.

Inspired by Viswanathan Anand just like all chess players of his generation, Gukesh got global recognition in 2019 when at the age of 12 years, 7 months, and 17 days he became the second-youngest Grandmaster in the history of the sport, missing the record held by Sergey Karjakin by 17 days. Though he has since been surpassed by India-American Abhimanyu Mishra, Gukesh's meteoric rise as a chess player continued.

In the last five years, Gukesh has won many titles including an Individual Gold medal in the 2022 Chess Olympiad in Chennai, a silver medal in the Asian Games in Hangzhou, and gold medals in the World Youth Championships in 2018 and 2020.

In October 2022, Gukesh became the youngest player to beat Magnus Carlsen, the World No.1, since he became the World Champion. In December 2024, he officially surpassed Viswanathan Anand as the highest-ranked Indian chess player and a few months later, became the third-youngest player to play in a Candidates Tournament behind Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlsen.

As a player, Gukesh is very tenacious, has great positional sense, and is very patient as he showed in his marathon victory against Wei Yi of China in the Budapest Olympiad, capitalising on a slight edge to claim a crucial point that propelled India towards the title.

Now that he has emerged as the youngest player to win the Candidates Tournament, Gukesh is hoping to scale the summit by becoming the youngest World Champion in the history of the game.