How World Champion D Gukesh Won the Irresistible Force vs Immovable Object Contest Against Ding Liren

The age bar was set lower by a mile at the Chess World Championship in Singapore, when Dommaraju Gukesh became the youngest champion, beating the current World champion Ding Liren of China.  It was not merely days or months, but four years by which he decimated a mark set by Magnus Carlsen and Garry Kasparov, and it looks like almost a permanent record because we cannot imagine another 18-year-old ‘scaling the Everest and crossing the Amazon of chess’, to borrow an expression that former World champion Viswanathan Anand used when he lost to Anatoly Karpov in the final in Lucerne 16 years ago.

You may get 10-year-old Grandmasters in future to make chess younger, but to go through the grind of the World Championship in a tell-tale fashion and end the 14-game journey in style requires incredible talent and motivation. By the way, eighteen is not just his age, but he is also the 18th World champion.