Gukesh Dommaraju facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Gukesh D
Gukesh in 2024
Country	India
Born	(2006-05-29) 29 May 2006 (age 18) Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Title	Grandmaster (2019)
World Champion	2024–present
FIDE rating	2563 (December 2024)
Peak rating	2794 (October 2024)
Peak ranking	No. 5 (October 2024)

Gukesh D (born 29 May 2006), also known as Gukesh Dommaraju, is an Indian chess grandmaster who is the reigning World Chess Champion. He is the youngest undisputed World Chess Champion and the youngest Candidates Tournament winner. He was also the third-youngest grandmaster, the third-youngest to reach a chess rating of 2700, the youngest to reach a rating of 2750, and the eighteenth-highest rated player in history with a peak rating of 2794. He has won one team and two individual gold medals at the 2024 45th Chess Olympiad, as well as a bronze team medal. Gukesh is also a silver medalist at the Asian Games.

At the 2024 World Chess Championship, Gukesh defeated Ding Liren 7½ to 6½ to become the 18th World Chess Champion, winning 3 games out of 14. At the junior level, he is a multiple-gold medalist at the World Youth Championship and the Asian Youth Championship.

Early life

Gukesh was born on 29 May 2006 in Chennai into a Telugu family hailing from Andhra Pradesh. His father, Rajinikanth, is an ENT surgeon, and his mother, Padma, is a microbiologist. He learned to play chess at the age of seven. He studied at the Velammal Vidyalaya school, Mel Ayanambakkam, Chennai.

Gukesh began practicing and playing chess in 2013 for one hour three days a week. After his good performance was acknowledged by his chess teachers, he began to participate more often and play tournaments on weekends.

Career

Youth Championships and rise in chess (2015–2019)

Gukesh won the Under-9 section of the Asian School Chess Championships in 2015 and the World Youth Chess Championships in 2018 in the Under 12 category. He also won five gold medals at the 2018 Asian Youth Chess Championships in the U-12 individual rapid and blitz, U-12 team rapid and blitz and U-12 individual classical formats. He completed the requirements for the title of International Master in March 2017 at the 34th Cappelle-la-Grande Open.

On 15 January 2019, at the age of 12 years, 7 months, and 17 days, Gukesh became the then second-youngest grandmaster in history, only surpassed by Sergey Karjakin by 17 days. The record has since been beaten by Abhimanyu Mishra, making Gukesh the third-youngest.

In June 2021, he won the Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour, Gelfand Challenge, scoring 14 out of 19 points.

Olympiad individual gold (2022)

In August 2022, he played the 44th Chess Olympiad and initially had a perfect score of 8/8, notably defeating US No. 1 Fabiano Caruana in the eighth match. He finished with a score of 9 out of 11, earning the gold medal on the 1st board and his team India-2 finished third in the tournament.

In September 2022, Gukesh reached a rating of over 2700 for the first time, with a rating of 2726. This made him the third-youngest player to pass 2700, after Wei Yi and Alireza Firouzja. In October 2022 during the Aimchess Rapid tournament, Gukesh became the youngest player to beat Magnus Carlsen since the latter became World Champion.

Candidates qualification (2023)

In the August 2023 rating list, Gukesh became the youngest player ever to reach a rating of 2750. Gukesh participated in the Chess World Cup 2023. He defeated Misratdin Iskandarov, S. L. Narayanan, Andrey Esipenko, and Wang Hao to qualify for the quarterfinals, where he was defeated by world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen.

In the September 2023 rating list, Gukesh officially surpassed Viswanathan Anand as the top-ranked Indian player, marking the first time in 37 years that Anand was not the top-ranked Indian player. In December 2023, with the end of the FIDE Circuit, Gukesh qualified for the 2024 Candidates Tournament. Gukesh had placed second in the Circuit, but Fabiano Caruana, the winner, had already qualified through the World Cup. He became the third youngest player to qualify for a Candidates tournament, behind Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlsen.

Olympiad gold and world champion (2024–present)

Gukesh (left) playing Alireza Firouzja at the 2024 Candidates Tournament

In January 2024, Gukesh participated in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2024. He scored 8.5/13 to finish in a 4-way tie for first place. In the twelfth round, he had a winning position against R Praggnanandhaa, but blundered into a threefold repetition. In tiebreaks, he defeated Anish Giri in semifinals but lost to Wei Yi in the finals.

In April 2024, Gukesh participated in the 2024 Candidates Tournament. Gukesh won games against R Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi playing as black, Alireza Firouzja playing as white, and Nijat Abasov playing as both black and white. His only loss was his game with black against Firouzja. This gave him five wins, one loss and eight draws, for a score of 9/14, winning the tournament and qualifying for the 2024 World Championship match against Ding Liren. He is the youngest ever winner of the Candidates.

In September 2024, Gukesh took part in the Chess Olympiad in Budapest as part of the Indian team. He showcased a dominant performance on board one, defeating Wei Yi, Parham Maghsoodloo, and Fabiano Caruana and finishing with 9 points in 10 rounds. He had the highest performance rating of 3056 among all players in the tournament. His performance earned him an individual gold medal on board one, and helped India to their first ever team gold medal at the Olympiad.

Gukesh entered the FIDE world top-five for the first time on 1 October 2024. He became the 18th World Chess Champion on 12 December 2024 after defeating Ding Liren in the last game and winning the World Chess Championship by 7.5–6.5. The win made him the youngest undisputed World Chess Champion, with only Ruslan Ponomariov, the winner of the 2002 World Chess Championship, a knock-out style tournament during the period where there was a title split in the chess world, being younger.

Awards and nominations

See also

In Spanish: Gukesh D para niños

• Chess in India
• List of Indian chess players
• List of chess grandmasters