A clutch of prodigious Indian teens are snapping at chess world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen’s heels.
One of them, 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju, will face China’s Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship in Singapore on Nov 25. And Carlsen believes the world’s fifth-ranked player is the clear favourite to win the title.
He told the Hindustan Times that he is throwing his weight behind the grandmaster from Chennai who has stunned the chess world with his rapid strides over the past couple of years.
“He’s playing the World Championship at 18 in what might seem like a fun experience. But there’s more than one billion people expecting him to win, so, I think even he cannot help but be somewhat affected by that, at least at the start,” said Carlsen, 33, who has held the No. 1 spot since July 2011.
“Still, it will be the biggest moment of Gukesh’s career, and he will feel the pressure. The most likely scenario is that the match will start out a little bit nervy. There’s a chance that Gukesh wins a couple of games early. If that happens, the match will more or less be a whitewash.”
Gukesh made history by becoming the youngest player ever to win the Fide Candidates tournament last April, fending off a field packed with the world’s top players, including Hikaru Nakamura, Ian Nepomniachtchi and his compatriots R. Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi.
He eclipsed former world champion Garry Kasparov’s record (20 years, 11 months) by over three years, and is the only Indian other than his mentor Viswanathan Anand to win the Candidates title.
The World Championship clash in Singapore will see an Indian participant for the first time since Anand competed at Sochi in 2014.
Carlsen, who hadn’t given Gukesh much chance of winning the Candidates title, admitted that his earlier estimation was well off the mark.
“I didn’t think he was solid enough to sustain the kind of performance that he did in the Candidates and I was wrong… completely wrong,” said the Norwegian.
Though reigning world champion Ding has been battling mental health issues and is a shadow of his former self, Carlsen – who most rivals find intimidating – confessed that he once “feared” the Chinese grandmaster.
“Back in 2019, Fabiano (Caruana) and Ding were pretty much neck and neck. Ding was very, very strong then. Someone I massively respected and even feared,” said Carlsen.
The five-time world champion had some words of caution for Gukesh in his match against Deng.
The Indian’s performance at last month’s European Club Cup – where he started with two wins but then went on a five-game winless streak – revealed a few chinks in his armour, said the Norwegian.
“That must be very encouraging for Ding,” said Carlsen. “You could see that Gukesh can be quite vulnerable at times and he sometimes doesn’t quite feel the moment when he needs to sort of slam the brakes and play solidly.”
Almost one month before his World Chess Championship duel with Ding, Gukesh experienced his first loss in classical format at the European Club Cup 2024 against 34-year-old Russian grandmaster Dmitry Andreikin. It was the Indian teen’s first defeat in the classical format in 38 games.
As the opening World Chess Championship match at Resorts World Sentosa looms, the event is taking place at a time of growing rivalry between Asian giants China and India – geopolitical rivals competing for leadership of the Global South in an increasingly multipolar world.
It is the first time India and China face-off for the world championship in a major sport.
The choice of Singapore as the host city for the championship match reflects not just Asia’s ascendance on the global chess stage long dominated by Europe and America, but also the growing role of the city-state as a venue for major events.
