D. Gukesh holding the distinguished Candidates award
| Picture Credit score: Srinivas Aditya P 2127@Chennai
Grandmaster (GM) D. Gukesh pulled off an outstanding achievement by profitable the distinguished FIDE Candidates Chess Match 2024, a.ok.a. Candidates, scoring 9 factors out of 14 video games. On the younger age of 17, he has outshone among the finest chess gamers on the planet. He’s the youngest winner of the Candidates. The event, which was first performed in 1950, has seen 25 editions thus far (Desk 1).
Desk 1 | The desk exhibits the winners of the Candidates, the 12 months of the event, age at which the participant received the event and the incumbent champion of the event.
Notice: The age of the gamers have been calculated based mostly on approximate distinction in years and never actual dates
Desk seems incomplete? Click on to take away AMP mode
Two different Indians — fellow Chennai teenager GM R. Praggnanandhaa and GM Vidit Gujrathi — carried out creditably scoring seven and 6 factors, respectively, within the open part of the 2024 event. GM Koneru Humpy and GM-elect R. Vaishali did effectively to complete third within the girls’s part. Gukesh can also be the primary Indian to win the Candidates since GM Viswanathan Anand received the event in 2014 and earned him a rematch for the World Championship towards GM Magnus Carlsen.
Desk 2 | The desk exhibits Gukesh’s common transfer accuracy, the identify of his opponent and their common transfer accuracy in all of the 14 rounds of the event.
Gukesh’s victory within the event was the results of his all-round consistency and steady play. Based on Chess.com, Gukesh’s common transfer accuracy within the estimation of high-performing chess engines in all 14 rounds was 95.4% versus his opponents’ 93.6% (Desk 2). He additionally led the event in wins (5), dropping solely as soon as to GM Alireza Firouzja, after committing last-minute blunders. He defeated the event’s lowest-rated participant, Nijat Abasov, twice; his compatriots Praggnanandhaa and Gujrathi as soon as every; and avenged his loss towards Firouzja within the penultimate spherical. He additionally drew comfortably in his video games towards the higher-rated GMs Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Hikaru Nakamura. All three of them completed half a degree behind Gukesh.
Additionally learn: Chess: D. Gukesh profile | A younger knight who has the armoury to reign supreme
Gukesh is at the moment India’s top-rated participant in FIDE stay rankings with 2763.4 factors, simply two forward of GM Arjun Erigaisi. Anand, Praggnanandhaa, and Gujrathi are the opposite three within the high 5. Gukesh has additionally develop into the world no. 6 in stay rankings, behind GMs Carlsen (2830), Caruana (2805.4), Nakamura (2794.4), and Nodirbek Abdusattarov (2765), who can also be an adolescent.
His opponent within the FIDE World Championships, scheduled for November 2024, is incumbent champion GM Ding Liren of China. Apparently, Ding is at the moment ranked world no. 7 and, with 2762 factors, solely two behind Gukesh. However with a peak ELO of 2816 and being one in every of simply 15 GMs to cross the super-elite score of 2800 (in stay rankings), he will probably be a tricky opponent.
The ladies’s championship is ready to be an all-Chinese language affair between GMs Tan Zhongyi (the challenger) and Ju Wenjun (the incumbent). Gukesh may have an opportunity to thwart a repeat of the Chinese language stranglehold over each championships in 2023.
Chart 3 | The chart exhibits compares Gukesh’s score factors over time, with that of tremendous GMs Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri and Alireza Firouzja.
Gukesh’s ascendancy to turning into the challenger to the world crown isn’t an accident. Chart 3 exhibits how his trajectory matches that of tremendous GMs like Carlsen, Anish Giri, and Firouzja. All of them have been additionally little one prodigies who went on to develop into formidable elite gamers.
However whereas Gukesh grew to become the primary participant to supplant Anand because the highest-rated Indian final 12 months, he suffered a virtually 40-point drop in ELO rankings between October and December 2023, from 2758 to 2720. He subsequently managed to provide you with convincing performances to hike his rankings steadily again to succeed in a brand new peak of 2763.4 (stay) by the top of the Candidates. If he continues to take care of this kind, a rewriting of the report books by the top of the World Championships could be so as.
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