Picture: Maria Emelianova / International Chess Federation
Doha, Qatar: Four players were vying for the top spot at the FIDE Candidates Tournament and the 17-year-old Indian prodigy Gukesh D emerged victorious in Toronto.
After holding second seed Hikaru Nakamura of USA to a draw, Gukesh D had to wait for the result of the game between Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana of the United States to play out to know the outcome. As that match concluded in a draw, Gukesh was declared the winner after having accumulated the most points in the tournament, becoming the youngest World Chess Championship Challenger in history.
He will now have a chance to become the youngest World Champion when he faces China's Ding Liren at the end of this year. Magnus Carlsen and Garry Kasparov were 22 when they became the champions.
After being declared the winner of the FIDE Candidates, in an interview Gukesh said, "Right now, I am so relieved and so happy. I was following this crazy game (Caruana vs Nepomniachtchi), and I was completely emotional, but now, after the game finished, I'm feeling quite good."
FIDE in its statement said: Gukesh caught Hikaru Nakamura off-guard in the opening, swiftly achieving an equal position. Magnus Carlsen, the world's top-rated chess player, provided live commentary on one of the streams and praised Gukesh's 11…b4 move: "I love what Gukesh has done. It's something I haven't seen before." By the 20th move, Gukesh had gained a pawn, but the position in the game was drawish. Nakamura never really risked losing, and both players logically drew the game.
The nerve-racking game had every chess fan on their toes at the Great Hall in Toronto.
Gukesh becomes the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand to win Candidates Chess.
