By the time this is published, Gukesh would have invariably lost the first game of his world championship match, objectively speaking he has, any other result would be nothing short of a miracle, and they do happen.
And since he is already being compared to Bobby Fischer – as Bobby did not have a win against Spassky until their world championship, and come to think of it, he also lost the first game of the match, so as far as prophesies go, this loss portends a World Chess Championship for Gukesh Dommaraju.
Although there are 13 more games to go do not forget peak Ding is a monster and amongst the current lot of Super GMs probably the only player who could take on Magnus Carlsen in a championship match.
But this is about our man, Gukesh Dommaraju or D Gukesh as he is fondly called.
The Man with the Beard
As far as conventional looks go, Gukesh is a handsome boy but for a Chess player he is nothing short of aristocratic. But jokes apart what makes other men envy him is not his chess prowess, they know he is a once if a lifetime talent; driven, motivated and a challenger to the throne at the age of eighteen.
Neither do they begrudge that at eighteen he is probably a self-made millionaire that too in US dollars; which he definitely would be after the championship match is over; before taxes at least. There are caveats but you get the point.
If it is not the skill, the looks or the money, then what is it?
The facial hair. He has the most magnificent beard an eighteen year old could have, and if you habit the dungeons of chess forums, they say only Thror from the middle kingdom had one that was more magnificent.
Or Monty Panesar for that matter,
I needed a reason to share that, and that is perhaps the best thing you would watch today, if you do that is.
Of Cricket and Chess
Some would disagree but Test Cricket and Chess has few things in common, it requires planning, patience and persistence, strategy and tactics but most important of it all; these two sports have found a lot of popularity and financial success in India.
Indian chess players are envy of the world now with the amount of corporate sponsorships as well as support of the state but thankfully not the Soviet kind.
There is a revolution of sort that is happening all across the country and within a decade India should have the highest number of GMs in the world.
That might sound like a hyperbole but if you think soberly, as the numbers of players grow, the facilities grow, and the tournaments grow, the players would be able to achieve their grandmaster norms in faster manner – as India would be able to locally fulfil FIDE’s strict tournament criteria for granting GM norms.
One unintended consequence of extremely high level of pollution in India, would be more Indians sitting indoors playing chess.
The Championship
The World Chess Championship is a match between the player who wins the candidates and the existing world champion. Winning the world championship does not make you the world number one player; neither does being world number one would guarantee you the world championship.
It is true for every sport. It is who you are on the given day. As I write, Gukesh is already lost, and he is number 5 on live ranking and Ding is 23, and who know what the final score would be – but the champion is the one who is the best on a given day and in Chess in a given match.
It’s not a WCC match if the best players aren’t playing. – Gary Kasparov
He has a penchant for such comments. He had said the same during Anand-Gelfand 2012 match. Maybe that is his way of finding relevance, or perhaps he does not understand that there is whole wide world of spectators who enjoy Chess for what it is and are not troubled by the sentiments of the purists. Gukesh was an outside contender, no one had given him the chance during the Candidates and now he has come to the match as the favourite, even The New York Times chimed in on that, but I feel that now it is no longer the case, and hopefully he has a plan to turn things around and the man with the beard triumphs and brings the championship home.
As it is weeks before I will pop champagne to usher in the reign of the new champion, it is beer until then.
