He is only 17 years old, but he has delivered one of the loudest blows in the history of chess. The Indian Dommaraju Gukesh won an extremely tough Candidates Tournament and will challenge the Chinese Ding Liren for the world title. It is a milestone, since he is the youngest in history to play a match for the world championship. Mentored by his compatriot Viswanathan Anand, five-time world champion, the young Indian prodigy aims to become the best in the world, something that he will have to solve in the future with Magnus Carlsen.
A few draws against Hikaru Nakamura, an American expert in fast modalities, served Gukesh to start a celebration that lasted for hours in India, where he is already considered a hero. His bushy beard and formal countenance hide the fact that he is only 17 years old, which heightens the heroic nature of his achievement.
To win this Candidates Tournament, especially tough, he had to beat five of the six best in the world -Magnus Carlsen, number one, did not participate because he was against the game system and for not feeling motivated against his rivals- . Gukesh’s strategy was to defeat weaker or less fit opponents, such as the Azerbaijani Abasov (last ranked), the French-Iranian Firoujza (won and lost one game) and his compatriots Praggnanandhaa and Santosh Vidit. From there he signed six draws (ties) against the toughest rivals, the Russian Nepomniatchi and the Americans Caruana and Nakamura. The result was that Gukesh got 9 points compared to the 8.5 of his three rivals.
The American Fabiano Caruana was very close to causing the tiebreaker after having a winning position against Nepo, but he wasted it due to control difficulties to overcome the control of move 40 and from then on the equality meant that neither could reach Gukesh, who had become the leader of the tournament a day earlier, after beating Alireza Firouzja.
