The Indian Gukesh Dommaraju has been crowned world chess champion. He has achieved it with only 18 years old, entering with his own right among the legends of the science game.
Singapore, December 12 of this year. The defending champion, the Chinese Ding Liren, and the challenger, the Indian Gukesh Dommaraju, went into the last game of the World Championship tied at 6.5 points, with the hope that it would end in a draw and in the foreseeable scenario that everything would be decided in the rapid playoff, where Ding was slightly favored. However, despite the fact that Gukesh had the black pieces, he sharpened an arid ending and the Chinese star made a fatal mistake. Gukesh then put his hands to his face and could not help but burst into tears: he was the new world champion! This is the part visible to the general public that, like icebergs, hides the truth. So, with your permission, let’s go back to the Barcelona of 2019, where the young Guki measured himself on the boards of the Open de Sants with adults who had reached mastery before he was born. I remember, as if it were yesterday, that first time I saw him play. The Indian talent was on the edge of the noble area of the tournament, sitting in the lotus position, his feet suspended two feet above his slippers, as if he were levitating. You didn’t have to be very smart to see in him a star of the future, but the road ahead was a tough one. “His mother and I are aware that he has been blessed with great talent, but going around the world with him is a big strain on the family. Constant flights are expensive, hotels are expensive, life is expensive… and, even if he is the strongest of his age, it will be years before he can compete with the professionals for financial rewards. I am a doctor, we can’t go on like this for long, but as long as we have the strength my wife and I will strive for our son to have a chance in life,” Rajini, his father, confided to me. In that tournament, after having achieved 2 of the 3 grandmaster norms in previous tournaments, Guki aspired to achieve the title, to be the youngest grandmaster of all time. He did not succeed, he was left at the gates. But history is written by those who persevere. Guki managed to be the third earliest grandmaster in history, which is not undeserved and, participating in the main Spanish tournaments (including the Llobregat Open Chess Tournament, where he left his mark in the hearts of the organizers for his human qualities), he climbed up the international rankings. Among other merits, he became the third youngest grandmaster to surpass 2700 international Elo points, entering the elite of the game-science. And that boy born in Chennai, who learned to play at the age of 7, became a man (perhaps a very young man, whose perfectly trimmed beard gives the appearance of age), polite and elegant, very cheerful in short distances, as loved by the fans as the previous champion, but with a very different style. I look, in retrospect, and I see that the qualities now required in the elite are different from those with which I grew up, as the icon Miguel Illescas pointed out to me. The new generations, including Gukesh, are the force of the algorithm, of the anti-thematic moves that subject global understanding to the tyranny of calculation. These are bad times for the holistic mind, relentless precision is the hallmark of this new world.
We have, then, a new champion who brings calculation, courage and youth, in addition to following the line of having an exemplary character. The title, in short, is in good hands.
The Indian GM Gukesh, during his participation in the first edition of the Llobregat Open Chess Tournament. Photo by Lourdes Porta.
By Jorge I. Aguadero Casado, editor-in-chief of Peón de Rey.
