• Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh became the youngest world chess champion at 18 years after beating title-holder Ding Liren in a dramatic turn of events in the last game of a 14-game match in Singapore.

• Gukesh became only the second Indian to clinch the coveted prize after Viswanathan Anand, who won the crown five times in his career.

• Gukesh secured the requisite 7.5 points as against 6.5 of his Chinese rival after winning the classical time control game. 

• As winner, Gukesh will walk away with a whopping $1.3 million (approximately Rs 11.03 crore) from the $2.5 million prize purse.

• Gukesh is the 18th world chess champion overall.

• Before Gukesh, the legendary Garry Kasparov of Russia was the youngest world champion when he won the title at the age of 22, dethroning Anatoly Karpov in 1985.

• It caps off a stunning year for Gukesh, who also won the Candidates 2024 tournament and the Chess Olympiad.

India’s newest king of 64 squares

• Gukesh manifested his destiny as a seven-year-old and turned it into reality in just over a decade’s time.

• But the journey to the top hasn’t been the easiest ride and has involved sacrifices not only from him but also his parents — ENT surgeon Dr. Rajinikanth and Padma, a microbiologist.

• Gukesh became the third youngest Grandmaster in the history of chess when he achieved the feat at 12 years 7 months and 17 days. 

• The Chennai-lad is also the third youngest to enter the elite 2700 Elo rating club and the youngest ever to scale the 2750 rating mark.

• The year 2024 is without a shred of doubt the best of Gukesh’s career.

• He won the Candidates Chess Tournament, was dominant on the top board to take team India to a gold medal in the recent chess Olympiad at Budapest, and the icing on the cake was his world title triumph in Singapore on December 12.

• Multiple-times age group championship winner, Gukesh became an International Master after a tournament in 2017 after a tournament in Cannes, France. 

• Early success of the young champion included a gold-winning performance in under-9 Asian school championship and the World Youth Chess Championships in 2018 in the Under 12 category.

• Gukesh’s passion for the 64-square chess board prompted his parents to stop him from attending school full-time after Class IV.

• It was in 2019 during a tournament in New Delhi that Gukesh became the second youngest Grandmaster in the history, a record that was then surpassed by only Sergey Karjakin of Russia but was later also broken by Abhimanyu Mishra, the Indian origin talent from the USA.

• In 2022, Gukesh won an individual gold medal playing on top board for the Indian team, a performance he repeated at Budapest again.

• In September 2022, he reached a rating of over 2700 for the first time and one month later he also became the youngest player ever to beat Magnus Carlsen, the reigning world champion at that time.

• Next year also went well for him as he crossed the 2750 rating barrier and the only disappointing moment was when he was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the World Cup and the road to world championship looked closed.

• However, in December 2023, Gukesh got another opportunity as the Tamil Nadu government came up with a strong closed-tournament that gave Gukesh the chance to have another shot as a win meant a ticket to Toronto for the Candidates. 

• The win also made him the third youngest ever to qualify for the Candidates’ tournament behind Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlsen.

• And amid all this, Gukesh was without a sponsor and had to manage his finances through prize money and crowd-funding initiatives of parents.

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