12.12.24 Elation and despair at the FIDE 2024 World Chess Championship. Gukesh Dommaraju, squeezing in a level position, was able to press Ding Liren into an unforced error under unimaginable psychological tension. With one move--55.Rf2--the Game, Match, and World Chess Championship title was lost to a forcing simplifying continuation. Congratulations to Gukesh Dommaraju, the youngest World Champion in history, the 18th, at the age of 18.

With the composure, tenacity, humbleness, and spirit of a true champion, Gukesh Dommaraju won the FIDE 2024 World Chess Championship Match today on the Island of Sentosa in Singapore to become the 18th World Chess Champion.

Gukesh kept the pressure on Ding Liren in a theoretically dead-drawn position in the final game of the World Chess Championship Match. In chess as in life, theory and practice can be vastly different animals. 

Ding was a bit better out of the opening, a kind of reverse Grunfeld in which Gukesh, playing the black pieces, played 6...Nge7 showing he and his team were armed to the teeth with preparation. The game was in virtually unexplored territory at move 10. On 13.Nb5, White had a lingering and unpleasant advantage. White had a freer hand in a position with plenty of imbalances. Some puzzling moves followed like 14.b3 and 17...Be6 (rather than the strong 17...Qa5) but when Ding played 19.cxb5, a move commentators called needless, White's advantage evaporated. 

Declining the queen trade on move 28, Gukesh engaged in a type of psychological battle. Yes, the position was theoretically drawn but it was Gukesh who could decide when and where the draw could be had. Black could play forever, with an extra pawn, and with no risk. Play he did. With an uncompromising, grinding style reminiscent of the great Magnus Carlsen, Gukesh kept playing, pressing, and posing not-so-easy questions to his opponent. White could not force a draw in the position with rook, bishop and two pawns vs Black's rook, bishop, and three pawns.

With Ding's bishop on the uncomfortable a8 square, disaster struck when he played 55.Rf2 and just like that the position went from dead drawn to dead lost--such is the agony of chess. Not believing his eyes for a moment, Gukesh collected himself before making two forcing captures trading rooks and bishops. The resulting position was an elementary win for White. Ding Liren, showing such fighting spirit himself throughout this Match, could do nothing but offer his hand in resignation on move 58. Gukesh put his head in his hands, and broke out into tears as the emotions sunk in. He was the new World Chess Champion.

In the post-game press conference, Gukesh showing composure and class, first and foremost, praised Ding's play and fighting spirit. Answering questions from the press, Gukesh said that the best moment of the Match was walking into The Cube for the first time and sitting at the board with the Indian flag. He recalled watching the Carlsen-Anand Match as an eight-year-old child thinking, it would be cool to be on the other side of the glass one day. His advice to his eight-year-old self? Keep enjoying chess.

Before leaving The Cube for the last time, Gukesh set the pieces up once again, pushed his chair under the chess table, and walked out of the arena into the congratulations and adulations of Indian chess fans and, indeed, chess fans worldwide.

Congratulations to Gukesh Dommaraju, 18th World Chess Champion!

(image courtesy FIDE/Eng Chin An)

The highest respect and praise goes to the vanquished World Champion Ding Liren.

(image courtesy FIDE/Maria Emelianova)

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