"The era of "Vishy's children" is truly upon us!" is what Russian chess great Garry Kasparov said in his long tribute to Gukesh Dommaraju after the 18-year-old broke surpassed him as the youngest ever to win the World Chess Championship. Viswanathan Anand is the greatest-ever chess player from India by some distance but he would surely be remembered as much for inspiring a generation of young chess players and potentially sparking a golden age for the sport in his country.
Gukesh admitted that he was in the stands when Anand's hold on the World Championship title was ended by Magnus Carlsen in 2013 in Chennai and that is when he first dreamt of becoming the youngest to win the title. Now aged 18, Gukesh has gone and done exactly that. It caps off an extraordinary year for him and India. Gukesh won one team and two individual gold medals at the 45th Chess Olympiad in 2024, as well as a bronze team medal. He also became the youngest to win the Candidates Tournament. Gukesh passed an FIDE rating of 2750 at the age of 17, becoming the youngest to do so. He is also the third-youngest grandmaster in the history of chess, having achieved the milestone at the age of 12.
'The Lightning Kid' at 18
Anand may not have been a world champion like Gukesh at the age of 18 - he won his first title in 2000 at the age of 31 - but he had broken a glass ceiling for Indians. There are a total of 85 chess Grandmasters from India and Anand was the first of them. In 1988, Anand became the first from the country to earn the title at the age of 18.
{{/usCountry}}Anand may not have been a world champion like Gukesh at the age of 18 - he won his first title in 2000 at the age of 31 - but he had broken a glass ceiling for Indians. There are a total of 85 chess Grandmasters from India and Anand was the first of them. In 1988, Anand became the first from the country to earn the title at the age of 18.
{{/usCountry}}He had earned the sobriquet "The Lightning Kid" in his early years due to his rapid playing speed. Anand won his first national level title at the age of 14 when he won the sub-junior championship on 1983. The next year, he earned the International Master norm by winning the Asian Junior Championship in Coimbatore.
In 1985, 15-year-old Anand became the youngest Indian to achieve the title of International Master after succesfully defending his Asian Junior Championship title and the next year, he became the national chess champion aged just 16.
More firsts were to come as Anand became the first Indian to win the World Junior Chess Championship in 1987 at 17. The next year, a victory in the Shakti Finance International chess tournament held in Coimbatore made him the first Grandmaster. This in turn led to Anand, extraordinarily, won the Padma Shri at the age of 18.