After India’s D Gukesh become the youngest-ever Candidates winner — which also made him the youngest ever player to qualify for the prestigious World Chess Championship, the 17-year-old said that the tag of being the youngest to do things once mattered to him. But at the moment, his goal is just one: to be the best in the world.
In his fledgling career, Gukesh has had many pathbreaking moments already, besides becoming a World Championship Challenger as a teenager (he will be 18 when he plays in November). Gukesh became India’s youngest grandmaster ever at the age of 12 years, seven months, 17 days, missing the tag of the world’s youngest by a mere 17 days. Last year, he overtook five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand as the country’s top ranked player for the first time after 36 years.
LISTEN: This week’s Game Time podcast is on Gukesh’s rise
While Gukesh was charting his course to the win in Toronto, a video from his younger days popped up. He was 11 at that stage and can be seen telling ChessBase India that he wants to be the youngest ever World Chess Champion.
India’s D Gukesh Gukesh became the youngest Candidates winner of all time on Monday. (FIDE)
Asked about that clip by FIDE’s YouTube channel before he left from Canada for India, Gukesh said: “I probably said it a few years back when all these youngest records actually mattered to me. But right now I just want to be the best. I don’t care about being the youngest or all these records. I just want to be the best and when I achieve it I really need to represent myself at that level. So that’s what matters to me nowadays.”
Asked what he likes about chess, Gukesh said: “Just the complexity of the game. I mean it’s still what I admire most about chess, there are so many things to learn each day you keep learning something new and there’s no stopping point to learning. I mean, people have literally been playing for thousands of years and no one has been able to understand it.”
Asked if he was ready to be recognised on the streets and be a really famous person on the streets after his win at the Candidates tournament, Gukesh said: “Till now it has not been a huge problem. Obviously I get recognized from time to time, but it has not been like whenever I go out I’m swarmed or anything. Even it’s if it is the case I’ve never really had a problem with handling media pressure or general
expectations from the public. I’m pretty sure I can
handle it well.”