Youngest Indian GM to youngest chess champ
There’s a now viral video of an 11-year-old Gukesh saying that he wants to become the youngest world champion. A short seven years later, Gukesh is living the dream.
On Thursday, Gukesh became the youngest-ever world chess champion at 18. He sobbed and spoke of doing a bungee jump.
The momentous achievement completed a stunning arc that began over a decade ago, a dream that was reared through sacrifice and an obsessive, single-minded focus.
His father, Rajni Kanth, has placed his career on the backburner to prioritise Gukesh’s dreams. His mother Padma, a microbiologist, has been the primary breadwinner. One of Gukesh’s first calls after his win on Thursday was to her.
“We didn’t really say anything…we were both crying,” Gukesh said.
There was a time when Gukesh was chasing the goal of becoming the youngest-ever GM between 2017 and 2018, bouncing from tournament to tournament across the world, sleeping in airport lounges.
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But as the costs spiralled, and the journey appeared untenable, Rajini Kanth’s former college-mates crowdfunded money so Gukesh wouldn’t have to let up on his dream. “Even now I feel bad that right after Gukesh became the world’s second youngest GM, I had to ask him to sleep at the Madrid airport on our way to a Gibraltar tournament,” said Rajini Kanth. “He’s never complained.”
“The professions we chose may be different, but the basic principle is what has been passed down from our parents,” Rajini Kanth told HT.
“My wife and I are from middle-class families and growing up, we were told by our parents that you have to study hard, there is no other choice. The general trend then was to either become a doctor or engineer. That’s how we both ended up in our respective professions,” he said.
“I later learned from my wife that hers was pretty much the same story. Her parents too had dealt with it the same way. When you have a mindset that for survival I need to do this one thing, it’s not very hard…Once Gukesh started getting good results in the sport, I told him – ‘Either you become a Grandmaster before you go to college or we’ll stop chess for now so you can finish your studies and college. Then you can do whatever you like.’ I think that gave him a sense of urgency and he realised how much he loved chess and wanted to succeed in it.”
Gukesh’s then coach Vishnu Prasanna fed him ‘Free Solo’ videos of American rock climber Alex Honnold’s mind-bending scaling of Yosemite’s 3000-foot granite-faced, vertical cliff El Captain. It was Prasanna’s way of teaching his pupil to stay grounded during every climb. Gukesh became a Grandmaster at 12 years, 7 months and 17 days, missing Sergey Karjakin’s youngest-ever world record by just 17 days.
“The youngest-ever GM sounded like a fancy thing,” Gukesh told HT in an earlier conversation.
“But I realised after I became GM that the record really doesn’t mean much. Chasing it was pure misery. But it turned out to be a great life lesson — on how to handle expectations and critical moments. Although I regret putting myself under so much pressure, I still use the learnings.”
Prasanna also kept chess engines out of Gukesh’s life through the early years, until he reached reasonable strength. It was his way to get Gukesh to think, solve positions and learn to make decisions on his own. In an era when most chess players are bred on chess engines, it was a rare approach.
Once the pandemic happened, tournaments came to a standstill and Viswanathan Anand transitioned from full-time player to mentor, Gukesh got the opportunity to train under him and his team of coaches. Anand’s academy stepped in with assistance for Gukesh who was without a sponsor for a fairly long time. His progress since has been exponential. Over the past year he has rocketed through rankings and history books – he is ranked inside the top five, he became the youngest-ever Candidates winner in a stacked field and is now the youngest-ever world champion.
Rajini Kanth joked that travelling together for tournaments and eating out has meant that he practically has to eat for two. “Gukesh is a small eater, So I end up having to eat both my portion and some of his too.”
A tenacious fighter and excellent calculator, Gukesh was always the kid who would stay put till he solved the position he was assigned. “It’s always been clear with us – we want him to take chances, we want him to take risks and we don’t want him to be afraid of losing.” In his match against Ding, Gukesh’s willingness to battle and his mental resilience shone through. It’s not easy being a debutant at a World Championship, losing your first game and then striking back and going on to win the whole thing.
A fan of MS Dhoni growing up, he found lessons in sheer bloody-mindedness from Novak Djokovic.
“I can never forget how he (Djokovic) saved two match points to win the 2019 Wimbledon final (against Roger Federer).”
Gukesh has, much like Honnold, climbed to the summit. This is the ultimate prize there is in chess. In the absence of Magnus Carlsen from the World Championship cycle the Indian knows he can’t stake claim to being the best chess player on the planet. “It’s a big motivating factor that there is someone at a very, very high level that will keep me doing the right things and working hard to try to reach the level of greatness that Magnus achieved….I want to have a very long career and stay at the very, very top.”
