Carlsen on Gukesh becoming world chess champion: 'He had weak moments but deserves to win the championship'

World No. 1 and former world champion Magnus Carlsen believes that D Gukesh has proven his chess credentials with his victory at the 2024 World Chess Championship and could go on to become either the second-best or the best player in the current circuit.

Gukesh is currently world No.5 with an Elo rating of 2783 in the FIDE rankings, while Carlsen (2831) is well ahead of every other player at the top. American Fabiano Caruana (2805) and Hikaru Nakamura (2802) are second and third respectively followed by India’s Arjun Erigaisi (2801) in fourth.

Gukesh is still to cross the 2800 mark in his career but it’s not only about reaching the top rankings, but it’s also extremely tough in chess to stay in the top three considering how Carlsen, Caruana, and Nakamura have performed consistently.

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‘Gukesh can become world No.1’

The 18-year-old Gukesh, however, has shown the world that he can do anything in chess. After becoming the youngest to win FIDE Candidates at 17 earlier this year, on Thursday, he became the youngest ever world champion , by beating Ding Liren in a brest-of-14-game series.

“Yeah. I mean, he has certainly accomplished a lot of things that put him on that path (of becoming a chess great). I would say it’s a little bit early to say. I think it’s a really good thing for him that there are two years now until he has to defend this title,” Carlsen said while analysing Gukesh’s World Championship win on Take Take Take’s YouTube channel.

“Because I think if he was playing somebody like Fabi (Fabiano Caruana) or Hikaru (Nakamura) in this match, and played the same way, he probably (would have) had a very difficult time. But when we’re talking about what’s going to happen in two years, winning this championship, I’m sure it’s extremely motivating. So there is a very good chance that he is going to go on a great run of results now, maybe even establish himself as the number two player in the world. And who knows, maybe in the not-so-distant future, the number one. So yeah, that whole thing I think will be extremely interesting.”

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Carlsen, who relinquished the world chess title in 2022, had been critical of both Gukesh and Ding and their quality of chess during the World Chess Championship 2024.

‘Gukesh deserves World Chess Championship 2024 win’

However, after Gukesh’s win, the 34-year-old Norwegian said that the rise of the Indian Grandmaster has been “extremely impressive”.

“It’s an incredible achievement. You can say all the things about the way that Ding played, but he actually did raise his level during this match and yet, for all we’ve said about how we probably did expect even more for Gukesh, it feels like he has had more,” Carlsen said. “He’s had very good moments. He has had some really weak ones as well. But he overall, I think, deserves (this).

“And especially with when we look at the way he got here. First, he was down in the FIDE circuit, won the tournament on demand to get here. Then he had an amazing performance in the Candidates tournament, played, I think, one of the better tournaments that we’ve seen in recent years.

“Then had a great Olympiad, even though that wasn’t part of this cycle. And so, like the total of it is extremely impressive. Even if the way it ended was maybe not as convincing as people would have would have thought from the outside.”

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The World Chess Championship was tied till the very last game and it was a last-ditch blunder from Ding that allowed Gukesh to capture the world title, just when it looked like the match would go into the tiebreakers.

Carlsen hailed Gukesh for his fighting spirit, saying that the Indian was rewarded for his perseverance.

“Of course, this was something that was a bit unexpected. A lot of us thought that Gukesh was the favourite to win the match, but this was a game that never really took off, like Gukesh was clearly fighting for the win, and I think he was doing an excellent job to keep the game alive. But it all happened very, very, very suddenly. And that, I think, is what he explained later as well, that he was a little bit on autopilot, expecting it to go to tiebreaks, and all of a sudden you get this, this chance, and it’s all over,” he said on Game 14.