Gukesh's success underlines India's positions as a chess powerhouse

Congratulations to Gukesh Dommaraju for winning the World Chess Championship 2024. He made the nation proud by becoming the second Indian, after Viswanathan Anand, to be crowned the World Chess Champion. This achievement is made more spectacular by the fact that he could win this title at the age of 18 years, thus becoming the youngest champion in the history of this tournament.

This victory follows India's recent win of gold medals in the men's and women's categories in the World Chess Olympiad, making this a golden year for Indian chess.

The rise of Gukesh to the top of the world in this game has been told and retold so many times that there is very little that is not known about him. His success is due in no small measure to the sacrifices made by his parents, especially his father, who quit his career as a successful ENT surgeon to support and travel with him for the various tournaments. His teachers, who identified his special talents very early and encouraged him to practise regularly for long hours, also deserve high praise. Success did not turn his head, and records started tumbling as he attained Grand Master status at the age of 12 and 7 months. He is also the youngest to cross the FIDE rating of 2750, which he did in August 2023.

The world championship finals in any sports discipline is a big-ticket event. The fight between Gukesh and Ding Liren, the reigning champion, went down the wire and was decided only in the last game. After the champion took an early lead by winning the first game, the challenger fought back to win the third one. After a series of seven draws, it was the turn of Gukesh to forge ahead by winning the 11th game, but Ding Liren came back strongly to win the very next one. When it looked like the finals would go into a tiebreaker after a drawn 13th game, Gukesh hit the right buttons to win the last game and lift the title.

Ding's loss was attributed to his bad move in the last game when it was heading for a draw. Gukesh quickly seized this opportunity and made the right moves to outsmart his opponent and pin him down. This was akin to a big blunder at a critical moment and resulted in the reigning champion losing the match and the championship. It was probably the nature of this error that made Andre Filatov, President of the Russian Chess Federation, allege that Ding Liren deliberately threw away the match and seek an International Chess Federation (FIDE) investigation into the conduct of players during the decisive moments of the last game.

In an era when match-fixing is not unheard of in many popular sports, such allegations may garner some media attention in the short run. It should not be forgotten that all bodies involved with governing sports and related disciplines, the world over, take precautions to ensure that players do not come into contact with undesirable persons. Further, a world championship is the biggest stage on earth, where competitors perform under the gaze of millions of people. Each act of theirs is seen and studied, and there is much more at stake than a few million Dollars. Hence, no one in their right senses will even think of any player compromising on anything or deliberately throwing away a game, let alone voice such thoughts.

Experts agree that a single poor move by Ding Liren opened the way for Gukesh to push his way to the Crown. In sports, it is common for performers to make mistakes in tense situations. The best football players fumble while taking penalty kicks in crucial stages of important matches, while lapses on the part of goalkeepers are not infrequent. In cricket, batters are prone to a sudden rush of blood when playing in tight situations, while bowlers tend to send down loose deliveries.

The classic example is the full toss sent down by Chetan Sharma in the finals of the Australasia Cup in 1985, capitalised to the full extent by Javed Miandad of Pakistan, who hit it out of the ground to win the match for his side. No one accused football players who missed penalty kicks or bowlers who sent down bad deliveries of deliberately underperforming. Everyone understood that such vagaries in form and performances are part and parcel of sports, and these malaises can affect even the best of the sportspersons.

In chess, there have been instances when top players cracked under pressure and let go of winning situations or made moves that gave their opponent the upper hand. The clash between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov during the 1980s was the stuff of legends. In their first clash, which took place in the finals of the World Chess Championship in 1984, Karpov took a 4-0 lead after the first 9 games. After 17 consecutive draws, Karpov increased his lead to 5-0 by winning the 27th game, at which point he needed only one more win to clinch the title. But Karpov started fumbling at this point and could not convert advantageous positions into victories as Kasparov started fighting back. Gradually, the tide turned as Kasparov won games 32, 47 and 48, making the scoreline read 5-3 after 48 games. At this point, after the finals had gone on for close to 5 months, the President of FIDE stepped in and stopped the matches, stating that it was taking a toll on the players' health. It was later disclosed that Karpov had lost close to 10 kg since the start of the finals and was in no mental or physical condition to continue playing. This was also why he could not close the game from winning positions.

Certain misgivings were raised in some quarters about the action of the FIDE President in stopping the championship when Kasparov was gaining the upper hand. But both players accepted the decision in good spirit, thus bringing the matter to a close. The two giants clashed again in the rematch in Moscow, by which time it was decided that the finals would comprise only 24 games. Kasparov won 13-11 this time and was crowned the world champion.

However, Karpov was not one to give up, and he clashed again with Kasparov on three more occasions in the finals of the World Championship- in 1986, 1987 and 1990. However, he could not defeat Kasparov despite coming very close to achieving this on a couple of occasions. The nearest miss was in 1987 when Karpov won the 23rd game and needed only a draw in the last game to win the title. However, he made a couple of mistakes in the final game, which allowed Kasparov to win this tie and retain the title.

Like other sports disciplines, chess is played as much in the mind as on the board. There is very little to separate one top player from the other, and the winner in a game is invariably the person who holds the nerves better in tense situations. Kasparov achieved this against Karpov, which allowed him to come back from seemingly “lost or unwinnable” positions. It is to the credit of Gukesh that he managed to retain his poise and calm during the critical final game and could latch on to the single misstep on the part of his opponent. The President of the Russian Chess Federation would have been better served if he had pored into this sport's history and broadened his understanding before making irresponsible comments.

The trait that endears Gukesh to everyone, irrespective of whether they are followers of the sport of otherwise, is how he conducts himself. Dignity is often defined as grace under pressure. Going by this definition, Gukesh has been the personification of dignity. Such was the grace with which he handled the tense situations, both on and off the board, that one felt a surge of sheer pride and pleasure in watching this young champion in action. His parents and teachers deserve a special round of applause for instilling this wonderful quality in him.

When India won the double gold in the Chess Olympiad a couple of months ago, experts opined that Indian chess had reached the “take off “ stage. Gukesh's success firmly establishes that India has become a powerhouse in the game. Such victories will spur interest in the sport, motivate more youngsters to take it up and force corporates to loosen their purse strings and support this game more actively. Indian Premier League (IPL) has demonstrated that proper channelling of corporate financial support can propel the nation to the pole position in a sport. There is no reason why this winning formula cannot be applied in other sports, and chess offers the perfect setting for doing this. Successfully pursuing this can help usher in a new dawn and make the coming decades into the golden period for Indian chess.

Let us applaud the new World Chess Champion and wish him more laurels in the years to come. Well played, Gukesh!