Meet the Kerala man with 100% win record against World Chess Champion Gukesh

In 2015, a nine-year-old Chennai boy lost a third time to a seasoned chess player from Kozhikode in north Kerala, including once at a national championship.

"Unkala mattum avanu jayikave mudiyala (he's never been able to beat you)," the boy's father, Rajnikanth, casually remarked in Tamil to the victor, OT Anilkumar. They parted ways after exchanging pleasantries.

Anilkumar, or OT, as he's widely known in the chess circuit, remembered the conversation when that father embraced his teary-eyed son, now a man of 18, in a cosy hotel corridor in Singapore. That was D Gukesh, right after he triumphed over China's Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship.

Beating a kid back in the day is not something to brag about. But try finding someone with an impeccable head-to-head record against a World Champion. OT had white pieces in all three of his wins against Gukesh, the FIDE games record shows. "He played quite well," reminisced the record seven-time Kerala state champion.

OT had met the future world champion at a crossroads in their careers. He was 52 and still going strong at the national level, while Gukesh's journey was beginning.

In 2015, OT had passed his prime, he had attained a peak Elo rating (a measure of the relative skill of players) of 2316 in the same year Gukesh was born (2006). When they played, OT had an Elo rating above 2100, while Gukesh's was about 2000, still an impressive rating for a boy who started playing just two years ago, at 7.

Since then, Gukesh's career trajectory has seen a steady rise. By 2017, he already crossed OT's all-time rating. Now, Gukesh is ranked 5th in the world (Elo: 2783).

"It was amazing to see him become the youngest world champion. Both him and Ding played a great match," OT said. When again reminded of his enviable record against the World Champion, OT just smiled. The 61-year-old still competes and teaches chess.