FIDE World Chess Championship 2024 has entered its final round, and the final will take place in Singapore. The entire world chess community will have their eyes on Singapore's Resorts World Sentosa on Sentosa Island from November 25 to December 13, 2024. The final of the FIDE WCC 2024 will be held between China's 32-year-old champion, Ding Liren and India's 18-year-old Grandmaster, Gukesh Dommaraju. This year's FIDE WCC final is historic because if Gukesh manages to beat Ding in the final, he will become the youngest player to become a champion.
Undoubtedly, Gukesh Dommaraju will break many records if he manages to lift the FIDE World Chess Championship 2024 title in Singapore. The entire Indian chess community looks forward to this tie as it can end the country's long-standing drought. For the uninitiated, legendary chess player, Vishwanathan Anand is the one who bought India's last World Chess Championship title back in 2012. Since his triumph, no other Indian has managed to win the prestigious title. Hence, the weight of a nation's expectations is on the shoulders of Gukesh Dommaraju.
Talking a bit about the format of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2024 finale, the first player to score 7.5 points will become the world champion. If the final between Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju goes into a tie-break, it will begin with four-game rapid playoffs. The much-awaited tie between Gukesh and Ding will be an intense battle for the youngster. This is because Ding is the defending champion who shocked the world last year when he defeated the renowned Russian grandmaster, Ian Nepomniachtchi, in the final of WCC 2023.
Talking about the Indian grandmaster, Gukesh Dommaraju, here are some interesting facts and figures about the 18-year-old chess player who is on the verge of creating history. Gukesh was born in a Telugu family in Chennai on May 29, 2006. While his father is an ENT surgeon, his mother is a microbiologist. Talking about Gukesh's schooling, he studied at Chennai's Velammal Vidyalaya School. As per multiple reports, at the mere age of seven, Gukesh was introduced to chess, and since then, he has been playing the game.
According to a report in the Indian Express, Gukesh Dommaraju's potential to become a professional chess player was first noticed by a chess coach named, Bhaskar V when the youngster was in class first. The coach reportedly had a talk with Gukesh's parents and eventually became his first chess coach, who helped him take the game forward professionally. However, not everyone knows that Gukesh left schooling after standard four and committed entirely to playing chess.
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The decision paid off when Gukesh Dommaraju won the under-nine section of the Asian School Chess Championship in 2015. He also gained a lot of attention in the Indian chess community when he won the World Youth Chess Championships in 2018 in the under-12 category. In the following years, Gukesh won a series of titles and created numerous records, including winning the Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour, being the youngest player to beat Magnus Carlsen, surpassing Vishwanathan Anand as India's top-ranked player in September 2023, winning India's first-ever team gold medal at the Chess Olympiad, and many more.
Almost every chess player in the world uses the chess engines, but Gukesh Dommaraju didn't use them until he reached a certain point in his age. As per multiple reports, when he was working with grandmaster, Vishnu Prasanna. It was a radical experiment, but it paid off as Gukesh has become quite precise in his calculations. For the unversed, a chess engine is a computer program which is used to analyze chess positions and calculate the best move options for a player.
India's greatest chess player, Vishwanathan Anand has mentored Gukesh Dommaraju and even advised him to start working with Poland's Grzegorz Gajewski. Gukesh is one of the few prodigies Vishwanathan Anand handpicked at his Westbridge Anand Chess Academy. During one of his conferences, Gukesh lauded Vishwanathan Anand for his efforts to groom him and other young players. Calling Vishwanathan a huge icon and crediting him for popularising chess in India, Gukesh never skips a chance to appreciate the living legend.
For the uninitiated, in September 2023, Gukesh Dommaraju became India's top-ranked player in the FIDE rankings in 2023. The youngster surpassed Vishwanathan Anand, which is a feat that an Indian achieved for the first time in the last 36 years. It was a huge moment for the Indian chess community as, for the first time in the last 36 years, Vishwanathan Anand wasn't India's highest-ranked player in the FIDE rankings. We hope Gukesh continues to create records and add new pages to history books with his exceptional talent and perseverance.
What are your thoughts on Gukesh Dommaraju's incredible chess career so far? Do you think he can surpass the legacy of legendary chess player, Vishwanathan Anand? Let us know.
Also Read: R Praggnanandhaa's Journey To Become Indian Chess Grandmaster At 18 And Playing World Chess Final
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