Gushing over Gukesh: 16-year-old turns heads with 6 wins at Chess Olympiad
In March 2022, D Gukesh was rated 2614. Five months on, he has a live Elo rating of 2719. This fascinatingly quick journey of 105 ELO points showcases just how good the 16-year-old’s recent run of form has been.
In March 2022, D Gukesh was rated 2614. Five months on, he has a live Elo rating of 2719. This fascinatingly quick journey of 105 ELO points showcases just how good the 16-year-old’s recent run of form has been.
If one wanted further proof, his unbeaten record at the Chess Olympiad being currently held at Mahabalipuram offers it in abundance. Playing on the top board for India B, Gukesh has amassed six wins in six matches — and the eyes of the chess world are on him.
Gukesh started off with victories against IMs Omran Al Hosani and Kalle Kiik, and then has kept the streak going against GMs Nico Georgiadis, Daniele Vocaturo, Alexei Shirov, and Gabriel Sargissian. Of these names, Shirov stands out. Not just because of his silver hair but also because of his reputation as one of the most aggressive players in the world. The manner in which Gukesh absorbed the aggression, baited him, and then triumphed, made several greats sit up and take notice.
“My strategy was to provoke him, and being an aggressive player, he could not resist aggressive moves, ones which I anticipated,” Gukesh said after the win on Tuesday.
The four positive results up to that point were good but the Shirov win confirmed that Gukesh was operating on a higher plane. So much so that Grandmaster and Director-General of International Chess Federation (FIDE), Emil Sutovsky, was reminded of Vladimir Kramnik’s breakthrough year in 1992.
“Gukesh Olympic breakthrough reminds me of Kramnik in Manila 1992. Exactly same age and same feeling of all-crushing power,” Sutovsky tweeted on Wednesday. Kramnik, incidentally, went to become the world chess champion.
For those who have been guiding Gukesh, the rise doesn’t come as a surprise as all.
Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand, who has been working with Gukesh at the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy believes this run has been in the works for a while.
“Gukesh has already been having excellent results for the last few months winning many events in Spain,” Anand said. “He is extremely hard working and focused and plays with raw ambition and no fear. This Olympiad is the rise of Gukesh. To do it here in Chennai is just excellent. I work with him often and his commitment at such a young age is impressive.”
The big change in the eyes of Anand has been the focus.
“He is just very focused. He had a few misses earlier but the last few months, he has been more aware of this and his performance is very smooth. He is also in a team (at the Olympiad) where the players motivate each other,” Anand added.
In 2019, Gukesh became India’s youngest GM at the age of 12 years, seven months and 17 days. He is also just the sixth Indian ever to cross a rating of 2700. But, during the pandemic, Gukesh did not play a single rated game for nearly 13 months. After the Cannes Open in February 2020, his next rated game was at the Bangladesh League in March 2021.
It was a long gap but it allowed him to focus on what truly matters. The Elo rating points are important but the quality of play is far more important. Earlier, he was getting the wins but the opening repertoire at times was limited and he would react badly to losses. And that combined would have meant that sooner rather than later he would have come up against a wall.
Attending the training camps conducted by former champion Kramnik, former world championship challenger Boris Gelfand, and being part of former world champion Anand’s academy, has helped give him a push in the right direction over the last year.
He is now adapting better to different kinds of position and the universality of his play, aligned with his fighting abilities is helping him a lot.
Strong players have the ability to seize the opportunity when a mistake is made by the opponent. And Gukesh is doing just that. He is calculating long lines quickly and evaluating the positions in the end so accurately that it almost feels like facing a far more experienced player than a 16-year-old.
World No 9 Anish Giri could not stop gushing on Twitter either, “On the bright side, looks like Gukesh D is never going to cross 2700 again.”
But Gukesh would like to believe that 2700 is but a number at this point. He won’t be paying too much attention to it for as long as he keeps winning, the noise will just fade into the background and his sole focus will be on the pieces and the board.
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