Indian chess grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju, 18, becomes youngest world chess champion of all time

Friday, December 13, 2024 

Indian chess grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju won the world chess championship on Thursday.
Image: Frans Peeters.

On Thursday, Gukesh Dommaraju, a teenage chess grandmaster from India, beat Ding Liren of China in the World Chess Championship in Singapore and became the youngest world chess champion in history.

NPR described the match as "tight" and seemingly "on the verge of a tie." Despite what was described as "near-perfect accuracy" between the plays made amongst the two, Dommaraju's victory was attributed to a fatal error made by Liren late in the game, wherein he attempted to capture one of Dommaraju's rooks by giving up one of his own. In a post-game press conference, Liren said he was "totally in shock" after realizing he made the error.

The previous holder of the title was Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov, who became the world's youngest chess champion in 1985, when he was 22. Dommaraju, the new holder of the title, is only 18 years old when he claimed the title Thursday. NPR called Dommaraju a "chess prodigy".

Sources

• Frances Mao. "Indian teen becomes youngest world chess champion" — BBC, December 12, 2024
• Alana Wise. "At 18, India's Gukesh Dommaraju becomes the youngest world chess champion ever" — NPR, December 12, 2024