Gukesh clear favourite to be world champ: Magnus
Magnus Carlsen supports 18-year-old Indian prodigy D Gukesh ahead of the World Chess Championship, predicting pressure but potential for success.
Magnus Carlsen is at peace. A clutch of prodigious Indian teens are at the chess world No 1’s heels on the ratings board. Carlsen even sees them overtaking him in a couple of years, but he’s at peace.
One of the pack, 18-year-old D Gukesh, will face China’s Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship later this month. Gukesh, ranked 5th and rated 2783, is the clear favourite for the marquee event, Carlsen told HT in an interview on Tuesday, throwing his weight behind the gandmaster from Chennai who has stunned the chess world with 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,” added Carlsen, 33, who is in Kolkata for the Tata Steel Chess Tournament to be held from November 13 to 17.
Still, it will be the biggest moment of Gukesh’s career, and he will feel the pressure, warned the Norwegian.
“The most likely scenario is that it [ the match] starts out a little bit nervy. Gukesh is still the favourite but anything can happen but there’s also a chance that Gukesh wins an early couple of games. If that happens, the match will more or less be a whitewash,” he said.
Carlsen would know. He’s been the world’s top player for 13 years, and was world champion for a decade before voluntarily relinquishing the title in 2022 over a “lack of motivation to play classical chess”.
Gukesh made history by becoming the youngest player ever to win the Fide Candidates tournament this April, fending off a field packed with the world’s top chess players, including Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi and his own 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.
The World Championship clash will be the first time in a decade that an Indian will be in a fight for the world title since Anand at Sochi in 2014. Gukesh was eight years old at the time.
Carlsen, who hadn’t given Gukesh a shot at winning the Candidates, 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. I saw back then that he was really strong but didn’t think it was likely (that he would win the Candidates and fight for the world title) but it was fun to see,” Carlsen said.
Though reigning world champion Ding Liren has been battling mental health setbacks and is a shadow of his former self, Carlsen – who most rivals can find intimidating – confessed he once “feared” the Chinese GM.
“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.”
Carlsen still had some words of caution for Gukesh in his match against Deng.
The Indian’s performance at the European Club Cup — where he started off with two wins but then went on a five-game winless streak —revealed a few chinks in his armour, said the Norwegian.
“I think it must be very encouraging for Ding. 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.”
Carlsen has achieved every honour possible on 64 squares and has now essentially put his classical chess career to bed. But should he hypothetically choose to return to play a match, Gukesh would be his preferred opponent, he said.
“At the moment I probably have the most fun playing Gukesh.”
Just to be clear, he added hastily, “I don’t think there’s anybody in the world who would be a favourite to beat me. But alright, they would have a chance.”
