At just 19 years of age, Indian Grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju has already crafted one of the most compelling recent narratives in chess.
He rose to the top by dethroning then-World Champion Ding Liren last December to claim the No. 1 spot in the rankings. But after a loss to compatriot Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, who is the only Indian other than Viswanathan Anand to win the Tata Steel Chess Tournament, Gukesh appeared to hit a downward spiral.
He struggled at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam in Weissenhaus, ending the tournament with zero wins, 11 draws, and six defeats. Things didn’t improve much at the Superbet Chess Classic in Romania, where he managed only one win, six draws, and two defeats.
However, he turned things around at the Norway Chess tournament. The event featured his first win in the tournament against Magnus Carlsen, a game that went viral when Carlsen smashed the table after losing. Gukesh also claimed his first classical win against Arjun Erigaisi. With just half a point separating him from Carlsen before the final round, Gukesh eventually finished third.
Five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand, who mentors Gukesh, was asked by Chess.com to grade the teenager’s performance after the Norway event. He upgraded Gukesh’s report card from a ‘C’ to a ‘B’.
“I think I will go up to B. He deserved a D, but he got a lot of answers correct somehow. So that’s a B. Given that he survived and based on his points, I would give him a B,” Anand said.
Before Norway Chess, Anand had been more critical. “I think I would say only ‘D minus’, but Wijk aan Zee is pulling him to ‘D plus’ maybe or ‘C minus’,” he had said.
“He played extremely well (at Wijk aan Zee). Kind of rebound effect. You always have this fear that after the world championship, you suddenly have some emptiness. But in fact, for him, the first event was extremely successful. The rest of the year has been more discreet, which is also maybe normal. Everybody treats him differently. He’s finding his way.”
“What would I put on a report card? I think ‘needs further improvement’ is kind of obvious; ‘must work harder’… something like that. He’s still very strong and he just needs to find the right connections again,” Anand had added.
Anand on Gukesh’s Norway Chess performance
Anand also touched upon the questionable decisions Gukesh made at Norway Chess, not under time pressure, but early in games.
“At Norway Chess, Gukesh made a lot of questionable decisions in his moves and not in time trouble. He did it in the earlier phase of the game. Quite some people criticized that, and I think the criticism is fair. Some of it at least,” he said.
“The two games he won with Magnus and Arjun are really the questionable ones. I’ll grant you all that. But then let me turn the same question: how many people in the world can beat Arjun and Magnus from these positions?”
“There are many things to criticize about his play. He was under the same time pressure as them. Second, if Hikaru or Magnus had escaped from some of these positions, we’d just say, ‘But they’re very strong.’ Same logic has to apply here.”
“I’m sort of conflicted. On the one hand, I feel we can’t just say he played a great tournament because he finished on 50%. Also, the fact that you have such defensive skills doesn’t mean you should be depending on them all the time. For instance, most countries have armies in order not to use them all the time. You don’t want to depend too much on these skills. But you have to say he was very resourceful,” Anand concluded.