Gukesh Dommaraju, world chess champion
He became chess grandmaster at age 12, and has just won the FIDE World Championship. Now, he wants to be the best chess player in the world, surpassing Magnus Carlsen.
The young prodigy born in Chennai, India, defeated the previous champion, the Chinese, in a dramatic game played in Singapore, in which he had entered as a challenger. The FIDE World Chess Championship has a prize pool of 2.5 million dollars (2.38 million euros), says .
Initially, in this 18th edition of the FIDE World Chess Championship, Gukesh Dommaraju He didn’t really believe in himself. “Throughout the match, I had several opportunities to achieve victories and many of the matches that would have given me an advantage were quite serious. But when I got closer, I was nervous and couldn’t put an end to it“, said the player after the victory.
“And suddenly… it was a sudden and I couldn’t process all the new information so quickly“.
Gukesh is um professional player since age 10. He is coached by Viswanathan Anand, himself a five-time world champion. He is currently 18 years old, meditates, swims, plays tennis and Became chess grandmaster at age 12. India currently has more than 85 grandmasters, many of whom have not yet reached the age of majority.
Gukesh’s parents are both doctors. His father Rajinikanth is a surgeon and his mother Padma is a microbiologist. To the BBC, the young man says that they both put their careers on hold to support their son.
“Initially, I used to watch my family members play chess at home, just as a pastimelike any other board game. But then I started to get interested in the game and, by chance, I signed up for a chess camp at my school… one of the coaches saw that I had a talent for the game”, said the player.
Now, he guarantees that he wants to have a “very long career at the top”. He still makes his goal very clear: he wants to be the best chess player in the world, and surpass the current number one, Magnus Carlsen.
