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Win shows Next Gen of chess is here: Gukesh
D Gukesh, the youngest-ever Candidates winner, reflects on his historic achievement in chess, marking a shift to the Next Gen. World Championship next!
It’s been a little over a day since D Gukesh made history and the 17-year-old is still catching up on sleep and getting used to the spotlight. Gukesh, who became the youngest-ever Candidates winner, will play the World Chess Championship later this year.
“It still hasn’t sunk in fully,” Gukesh told HT from Toronto, reflecting on the enormity of his achievement.
He said his win is a marker for chess’s Gen Z takeover. “I think the new generation has been showing very good performances for quite some time. And this feels like a huge moment in the shift to the Next Gen.”
What was striking about Gukesh’s performance through the three weeks in the Candidates in Toronto is his maturity — he chose calm over flash, judicious play over ambition. “I mean, it’s good to be ambitious, but the ambition should be controlled. You need to do what is demanded of the position. That was my main focus. I was trying to do it throughout the tournament – just know what the position needs, and play it accordingly. If it’s a draw, go for a draw. And if I have a chance then I take it. Mainly, I was trying to not do anything stupid.”
It’s not an attitude that was built overnight. He’s had to contend with a few painful losses in the past to rewire his thinking over the board. In the 2022 Olympiad, Gukesh had a flawless streak of eight wins from eight rounds, but then, in a crucial game against Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov that was to decide the gold medal, he had a moment of madness. While a draw would have sufficed, he kept pressing for a win, and ended up losing. “I guess it comes with experience. I have had some bad memories where, because of certain achievements in my mind, I went crazy. I kept over-pushing and lost a few games like that. Then I learned that I should be objective.”
In the run-up to the Candidates, Gukesh featured nowhere among the favourites. World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen went as far as to say that it would come as a “shock” if any of the three Indian players won. During the final round of the Candidates, Carlsen admitted on the chess24 stream that the Indian has proven that he’s ‘very strong’.
“I heard Magnus say it a couple of days before the tournament. It’s just his opinion and I guess on paper, of course, I was not the favourite. But I always had the belief that if I do the right things and keep myself in the best form, I have at least equal chances as everyone. From the time I qualified, winning was the only goal.”
His mentality – visibly nerveless and Zen-like, played a part. “I surely felt nervous. Luckily, I managed to perform well throughout the tournament. I didn’t do anything different from usual, but just things that I always did. I was genuinely more sincere and focused this time. I was meditating every day, and doing yoga. During the game, whenever I felt nervous, I took some time to calm down. It was not easy to handle… During tournaments, I find it easier to remain focused and just be serious. It just comes naturally to me. After the tournament, of course, I was very happy.”
His most nerve-jangling moments arrived in the final round. In a game that he wasn’t even playing. Gukesh drew against Hikaru Nakamura and his fate then hinged on the tussle between Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi that yo-yoed between opportunity and blunder and lasted over six hours.
“I was hoping there’d be no tie-breaks. I wanted to win the tournament outright. But in my game (vs Nakamura), I got a very easy position and that kind of made it hard for me to focus on my game. I was constantly looking at the other game. It was such a roller-coaster and so stressful to follow. But Fabi (Caruana) in the end couldn’t handle the pressure.”
Gukesh shut the world No 3 out of the game pretty early with his 11…b4 move. “After b4 I knew that I had to try hard to lose the position. B4 was a nice idea and quite a new concept. It was not part of my preparation. My preparation ended a few moves before. But this b4 was an idea that I just came up with on the board. It was initially a little scary to play a move like that. But once I calculated it out and knew what I was doing, it was pretty clear that Black has just a very comfortable position.”
The teen spent his rest days through the nearly month-long tournament playing pickleball with his trainer Grzegorz Gajewski. But as it headed into its final few rounds, the fatigue hit. “I did feel some tiredness especially in the last 2-3 three rounds. My energy levels dropped because of the constant nerves, but I was full of adrenaline.”
His World Championship match against Ding Liren is more than six months away. The reigning world champion has been off form and struggled with health setbacks since his title win last year. “I haven’t played a lot of matches, and especially not such a long one. But I’m not thinking about his form. No matter what shape he is in, I want to be at my best.”
Gukesh underlines that the success of peers pushes him, and ventures that his Candidates win might have a similar effect on them. “It will motivate many players and knowing that makes me want to push myself too. If any of my competitors do well, I’m more motivated. I want to be the best. I can’t accept it if someone does better than me.”
