World Chess Championship 2024: Gukesh's form and youth ...

If Gukesh wins his best-of-14 match against the 32-year-old Ding, he will become the youngest winner of the World chess championship. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

If Gukesh wins his best-of-14 match against the 32-year-old Ding, he will become the youngest winner of the World chess championship. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Bliss it will be to be the World champion, but to be young will be heavenly.

On a December day on the Singapore island of Sentosa, D. Gukesh could understand what poet William Wordsworth meant when he wrote, The Prelude, about being alive and young during the French Revolution. If Gukesh triumphs in the World chess championship match, which begins on Monday, he would be writing another glorious chapter of India’s chess revolution.

Gukesh is just 18. If he wins his best-of-14 match against the 32-year-old Ding, he will become the youngest winner of the World chess championship, the history of which goes back to 1886. The record belongs to Garry Kasparov. The Russian legend was 22 when he emerged as the World champion in 1985 after beating compatriot Anatoly Karpov in an epic battle that lasted over a year.

Strange as it may sound, it is the young, inexperienced challenger who starts as the favourite against the experienced champion. Such is the form Gukesh has been in for much of the last couple of years. Such is the lack of form Ding has displayed since becoming the first World champion after beating Ian Nepomniachtchi in an exciting title match that fluctuated wildly in April 2023 at Astana, Kazakhstan.

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Ding had shown great fighting spirit in that match. He had lost the second game, conceding the lead and then had to come back to equalise on two more occasions to make the score 7-7 after 14 classical games, as he forced the tie-breaker that he went on to win and become the first male World champion from China and second from Asia.

Viswanathan Anand was the first Asian to win the tournament when he won the 2000 FIDE World Championship with a crushing victory over Alexei Shirov of Spain. The genial genius is now a mentor for Gukesh and other shining stars of the golden generation of Indian chess.

Gukesh had watched Anand take on Magnus Carlsen in the 2013 World Championship match in Chennai, home to both, as a little kid. Though Anand was the defending champion, his young Norwegian rival had started as the favourite. Carlsen lived up to the expectations and won the first of his five titles with two of the scheduled 12 games not required.

Eleven years later, it is once again the champion that begins the World title match as the underdog. It is not just poor form that Ding has had to contend with; he has admitted that he has had to deal with mental health and sought professional help.

He is currently ranked 23rd in the world, while Gukesh is fifth. But, three years ago, Ding was the World No. 3. If he could get back to his top form and bring out the fighting quality he displayed against Nepomniachtchi last year, we could get an interesting match.

He could also take heart from his superior head-to-head record against his rival. But, of course, youth can do wonderful things.