17-year-old D Gukesh made history by winning the FIDE Candidates in Toronto on Sunday, becoming the first teenager to achieve this feat. He became the youngest World Championship challenger and only the second Indian, after Viswanathan Anand, to secure a spot in the Candidates.
Humble Beginnings
The teen sensation, born on May 29, 2006, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, hails from a Telugu-speaking family with roots in the Godavari delta region of Andhra Pradesh. His father, Dr. Rajnikanth, is an ear, nose, and throat surgeon, while his mother, Padma, is a microbiologist. Currently studying at Velammal Vidyalaya School in Chennai, Gukesh reportedly began playing chess at the age of seven.
Child Prodigy
Gukesh first garnered attention when he won the U-9 category of the Asian School Chess Championships in 2021, followed by the World Youth Chess Championships in 2018 in the U-12 section. Additionally, he clinched five gold medals at the 2018 Asian Youth Chess Championships. In March 2018, at the 34th Cappelle-la-Grande Open, he met the requirements for the title of International Master.
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He became the second-youngest Grandmaster in history on January 15, 2019, at the age of 12 years, seven months, and 17 days. Although he narrowly missed Sergey Karjakin’s record, he later became the third-youngest.
Shocking Magnus Carlsen
Gukesh achieved a rating of over 2700 for the first time, with a rating of 2726 in September 2022, becoming the third-youngest player to cross the 2700 mark, following Wei Yi and Alireza Firouzja. Then, in October 2022, he became the youngest player to defeat Magnus Carlsen since the Norwegian became World Champion, at the Aim Chess Rapid tournament.
Overtaking Viswanathan Anand
In August 2023, he became the youngest player to reach a rating of 2750. He reached the quarter-finals of the Chess World Cup 2023, before losing to Carlsen. In September 2023, he surpassed Viswanathan Anand as the top-ranked Indian Grandmaster, marking the first time in 37 years that Anand was not the top-ranked Indian player.
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Making History at Candidates
Gukesh qualified for the 2024 Candidates in December 2023. He was second in the Circuit, and Fabiano Caruana, the winner, qualified through the World Cup. Consequently, he became the third-youngest player to feature in a Candidates tournament, behind Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlsen.
In the 2024 Tata Steel Chess Tournament, he lost to Wei Yi in the finals. On Sunday he became the youngest-ever Candidates champion and will be the youngest-ever Grandmaster to play in a World Championship match.
