It couldn’t have been more exciting. Before the final round of the candidates’ tournament in Toronto, young Gukesh from India was on top and there were three pursuers with a half-point less: the Americans Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana and the Russian Ian Nepomniashchi.
In that final round, by a stroke of fate the four contenders were to play against each other. Gukesh with black against Nakamura and Caruana with white against Nepo. There was only one big prize: the tournament victor would play Ding Liren for the world championship, probably in November this year. For the others, there were mirrors and beads.
The three who were a half-point behind knew that a draw would leave them out. But Gukesh might win the tournament immediately with a draw and at worst it would give him a tiebreak.
Gukesh is 17 years old. It was a sensation that someone so young got this far. Garry Kasparov, who is no stranger to rhetoric, talked about an Indian earthquake and a tectonic shift in the world order of chess.
Gukesh is not quite the youngest player ever to take part in a candidates’ tournament, but he is by far the youngest to become a challenger to the world champion. Bobby Fischer was only 16 when he played in the candidates’ of 1959, but he finished fifth together with Gligoric, behind four Soviet players, and he was beaten 4-0 by the winner Mikhail Tal.
Nakamura-Gukesh lasted 71 moves, finishing with only two kings on the board. It was a hard fight, but it never seemed as if there would be any outcome other than a draw. When that game was finished, Caruana-Nepomniashchi was still in progress. The winner of that game would play a tiebreak with Gukesh.
Those two had been considered the favorites at the beginning of the tournament by many observers, including me and more importantly Magnus Carlsen, who had divided the players into five categories, with Caruana and Nepo in category 1, and Gukesh in category 4 as someone who was likely to do badly.
Caruana had played against Carlsen for the world championship in 2018 and only lost in the tiebreaks. He is second in the world rankings, behind Carlsen. Nepo had won the previous two candidates’ tournaments. There were good reasons to call them the favorites.
Afterwards, when Gukesh had already won the tournament, he said he had made a serious mistake, fortunately without negative consequences. During his own game, he had not been able to restrain himself from occasionally watching the game by Caruana and Nepo.
A serious mistake? But surely anyone would do that in his place? But apparently Gukesh is different. Nowadays people write about being “in the zone,” totally immersed in what one is doing. Gukesh does yoga and meditation and when I see him in videos, I think that at the chessboard he is in the zone.
I liked a video made during the 13th round, the penultimate one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzpMrz_MrgQ
The opening scene, where Gukesh and later Vidit are cheered by fans when they enter the tournament site known as The Great Hall, is nice, but I was impressed by the scenes when Gukesh and his opponent Alireza Firouzja were at the board. Later, after he had won the game, you see Gukesh at the press conference, but that was forgettable.
But before that, when nothing was said. The way Gukesh walks unfazed through the rows of fans cheering him on, how he hangs his jacket on his chair and how he adjusts his pieces on the squares. There is an intimidating seriousness in the smallest gestures. His beard makes him look older than he is, and his opponent Firouzja (20) looks like an awkward little boy compared to the man who is in fact three years younger than him.
The game between his pursuers Caruana and Nepo was dramatic. They had nothing to gain from a draw, and a draw seemed far out of sight when Caruana gained a big advantage early on. Each in turn made gross mistakes. The position was won for Caruana, then a draw, won again, then drawish again. The evaluation on the red-green bar that online viewers can see on screen jumped up and down like a drunken ping-pong ball.
After Gukesh had finished his game, he kept watching Caruana and Nepo for a while. Now he could allow himself to do so, but in fact he wasn’t able to bear the tension and went out for a walk. After 109 moves, Caruana-Nepo was drawn, a result that was of no use to either of them. “Sorry,” Nepo said to Caruana. He had done his sporting duty by defending a lost position for hours but could not be happy about it. Gukesh’s father ran out to shout at his son that it was over and that he had won the candidates’ tournament.
When Gukesh was 12, he had already said he wanted to be world champion. Speaking about Ding Liren in 2019, when Ding was still years away from becoming world champion and Gukesh was only 13, he was quoted in New in Chess magazine: “I really like the way Ding plays his chess – dynamic, but not rash, and very sound play all around.” It could have been a description of the style of the present Mr. Gukesh.
Of course, this time Ding Liren was asked what he thinks about his future challenger. On chess.com Ding said: “He has a maturity that doesn’t match his age, he has his own unique understanding of the position, and although I have the advantage in classical chess, he is a difficult opponent to face.”
Click here to view Vidit-Gukesh, Toronto 29024