D Gukesh makes Magnus Carlsen eat his words with Candidates Chess win

D Gukesh wasn’t most people’s contender for the title at the FIDE Candidates Chess in Toronto this past fortnight. The 17-year-old, who had become Grandmaster five years ago, wasn’t given much of a chance. Former world champion Magnus Carlsen was pretty blunt about the chances of the Chennai-native, who was set to make his first appearance at the Candidates.

“I cannot imagine him winning the Candidates. I can see him being anywhere from +2 to -5 (at the end of the tournament). I think he will certainly win at least a couple of games, but will have some fairly bad losses as well. I don’t think he will do poorly, but I don’t think he will do too well either. He’s not quite ready yet to make the leap. It’s more likely that he has a bad event,” said Carlsen in an interview on Chess.com on Gukesh’s chances before the tournament.

Two weeks later, Gukesh became the youngest Candidates Chess champion and will take on reigning champion Ding Liren for the world title in November.

Teenagers these days pic.twitter.com/6sZClEI1SL

— Mike Klein (@ChessMike) April 22, 2024

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Carlsen, who opted out of the tournament, picked two-time World Championship contender Ian Nepomniachtchi, World No 2 Fabiano Caruana and World No 3 Hikaru Nakamura as the favourites. The trio finished half a point behind Gukesh .

“Gukesh is probably a bit stronger than myself and others realised. The thing about Gukesh is that he can look really vulnerable at times. Then he’s also not very good at speed chess. That can confuse (people’s assessment about him). And he’s not as high-profile as some of the other youngsters, which is confusing. But he’s proven in this tournament that he’s very strong,” admitted Carlsen during a Chess24 stream.

Carlsen was also asked about the younger generation of players coming up. Besides the 17-year-old Gukesh , R Praggnanandhaa is 18 years old and made waves when he reached the 2023 Chess World Cup final , but lost to Carlsen.

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“In terms of the young players, they’re on the right track. I don’t think that any of them are ready… like to be No 1 in the world anytime soon. But there are many players who are never going to be like that. I don’t want to give these youngsters advice or anything,” he said before revealing that Gukesh had approached him at the Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge chess event and asked for advice.

“He asked what he should do at the Candidates. I said ‘I don’t have any advice. I don’t know.’ I only told him that he should not go crazy and that he should wait for his chances because other people will go crazy. I don’t think that advice was even helpful at all. He’s played very well,” said Carlsen.