Who Is Gukesh D? The Grandmaster Who Overtook Vishy Anand As India's Top-Ranked Chess Player

Teenager Grandmaster Gukesh D (Dommaraju Gukesh) rose to an all-new high with a win over home favourite Misratdin Iskandarov in a second-round match of the World Cup on Tuesday, and suddenly the entire India was talking about him. With his victory, Gukesh overtook his idol Viswanathan Anand in the live world (FIDE) rankings. The 17-year-old Gukesh outclassed Iskandarov of Azerbaijan in 44 moves in the second game of their second-round match.

"Gukesh D won again today and has overcome Viswanathan Anand in live rating! There is still almost a month till next official FIDE rating list on September 1, but it's highly likely that 17-year-old will be making it to top 10 in the world as the highest-rated Indian player," the international chess federation (FIDE) said in a tweet.

Who is Gukesh D?

Gukesh was just 7 years old when he learned to play chess. Hailing from Chennai, the same city as GM Viswanathan Anand, Gukesh was introduced to chess by his school, which is part of the Velammal group of schools across Chennai. Gukesh's first coach at the school, Mr. Bhaskar, quickly realised the boy's potential and helped him become a FIDE-rated player just 6 months after learning the game.

Vijayanand then took up as Gukesh's coach and the boy started to find success at the international level. At the 2015 Asian School Chess Championships, he emerged triumphant at the under-9 section while also earning the candidate master's (CM) title. His first major win came in 2018. Gukesh won 5 medals at the Asian Youth Chess Championships. The same year, he made the under-12 title his own at the World Youth Championships with 10/11 points.

Gukesh became an international master at 11 years, nine months, and nine days old. He then started working on his quest to become the youngest grandmaster in the history of the game.

Gukesh's first grand achievement came in January 2019, when he earned the Grandmaster's title at the age of 12 years, 7 months, and 17 days of age-narrowly missing out on GM Sergey Karjakin's record by just 17 days.

Gukesh has long been considered one of India's brightest chess talents. In July 2022, he achieved a live rating of 2700. In the process, he became the fourth-youngest player to ever do so.

The chess prodigy continued going strong at the international level after becoming the second youngest grandmaster of all time. He won team bronze and individual gold at the 2022 FIDE Chess Olympiad.

In 2023, he also claimed victory at the Junior Speed Chess Championship. He defeated IM Emin Ohanyan, GM Pranav V, and GM Raunak Sadhwani to claim the title. In July, he crossed the 2750 FIDE rating barrier, becoming the youngest player in history to do so, as per Chess.com.

The latest gain of 2.5 rating points took Gukesh's live rating to 2755.9, while Anand's is 2754.0. As a result, Gukesh replaced Anand as the World No. 9 in live rankings while the five-time World champion slipped to 10th.

Anand, who first made it to the World's top-10 in July 1991, has remained India's top-ranked player in all published lists since January 1987.

With PTI inputs