D Gukesh's trainer reveals how he reacted to news of Ding Liren's blunder in Game 14 of World Chess Championship

Polish Grandmaster Grzegorz Gajewski was part of Dommaraju Gukesh's team at the FIDE World Chess Championship that concluded with the teenager defeating China’s Ding Liren and becoming the youngest world champion in the history of the sport . And two weeks after Gukesh’s 7.5-6.5 victory over Ding in the ‘Best of 14 Games’ contest, Gajewski revealed that he was preparing a strategy for the tie-breaks when he received news of the then-defending champion committing a blunder.

The 14th and the final Classical game between Ding and Gukesh appeared headed for a draw when the former committed a blunder in his 55th move by retreating his rook from f4 to f2. Gukesh was quick to capitalise on his mistake and forced Ding to resign just three moves later, becoming only the second chess world champion from India after Viswanathan Anand in the process.

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“Around a couple of moves earlier, I had already discussed some ideas for tiebreaks with my team. And then I looked at the clock, and it was close to 9 pm. I thought, ‘It’s a good time to go and have dinner because they will play for half an hour to an hour at best. So if I don’t have my dinner now, I won’t have it at all’. So I went downstairs, and then the message came from my fiancée saying, ‘Oh my God, if he sees this, he is winning’. And I am like, ‘What?’” Gajewski told ChessBase India.

“I checked my phone, I saw Rf2 and then I saw this Bd5 idea. I thought Ding was not the first one to lose like that. I have seen this idea of having a fortress and then accidentally allowing your opponent to swap the bishop. I don’t know how to find the game, but it’s not the first time I have seen this. Then I just quickly ran to the playing venue.

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“Then I saw Rajinikanth (Gukesh’s father) - he was just shaking his head, checking his phone. He was completely in a trance. I told him, ‘If he finds it - it’s not over.’ He says, ‘It’s over’. I say, ‘It’s not over’. He says, ‘It’s not over?’ And then he plays the move. And he says, ‘You know, it’s not over. Let’s wait. No comment’. And this gets over,” Gajewski added.

It’s heavy!!! Well done @DGukesh the new World Champion, proud of you!@photochess pic.twitter.com/hPlvled7yf

— Grzegorz Gajewski (@GajuChess) December 13, 2024

The 39-year-old, who had received his Grandmaster title in 2006, added that Gukesh’s strategy to continue fighting and keep playing his best moves despite a looming draw eventually paid off. The 18-year-old from Chennai rejected a couple of offers for a draw from Ding, who was continuously pressing for a draw and would have entered the tie-breaks that would have taken place in the Rapid and Blitz formats as the favourite.

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“Gukesh wanted to exhaust him. He got exhausted in the end. But also, what we kept saying in our conversation with Gukesh was, “Just go there and play chess, make your best moves, don’t think about anything”. And Ding got punished because he wanted to make a draw in this game.

“I understand that you should not be playing for a win in this position with White. But you should not be playing it for a draw either. You should just make the best moves. If you see there is a way to nail it, you can nail it. But if there is no way to nail it, you just make the best moves. And maybe even a4 was not a bad strategy. But the mindset was problematic,” Gajewski added.