Historic success
New record: Indian is the youngest world chess champion
Updated 12/12/2024 – 6:34 p.mReading time: 1 min.
In the decisive game, Dommaraju Gukesh prevails – the defending champion makes a serious mistake.
At the age of 18, Dommaraju Gukesh became the youngest world chess champion in history. Against the Chinese defending champion Ding Liren (32), Gukesh surprisingly won the 14th and decisive game in Singapore on Thursday and won the World Cup with 7.5:6.5. The old record was held by the Russian Garry Kasparov, who became world champion in 1985 at the age of 22. Gukesh is the second Indian world chess champion after Viswanathan Anand.
His Chinese opponent led the white pieces and actually had the advantage, but forced the draw. With this outcome, the decision would have been made in a tiebreak on Friday.
But after about four hours, Ding made a serious mistake on move 55 and then gave up. Gukesh put his hands over his face and paused. The title fight between the opponents lasted almost two and a half weeks.
The world association Fide has set the prize money for the title at 2.5 million US dollars, which will be divided according to the games won: World champion Gukesh will receive 1.3 million US dollars, Ding will receive 1.2 million.