Less than a month ago, D Gukesh missed the chance to become the youngest Grandmaster in chess history at Sunway Sitges International in Barcelona. He was understandably disappointed, but then recovered telling himself that Magnus Carlsen didn’t do it either.
But on Tuesday, he became India’s youngest – and the world’s second youngest – Grandmaster as he achieved his third and final norm at the Delhi GM Open 2019. At 12 years, seven months and 17 days, he missed Sergey Karjakin’s record by only 17 days.
“The game was excellent actually, I felt really good with the result and very happy with getting the norm and with the game,” Gukesh told Scroll.in after his record.
“In this tournament, the quality of the games were very high, I played very well in the game especially the last round, it was a very good game.”
Remind him about his comment on Carlsen and having a record that even his chess idols don’t have, he simply answered: “Yeah, I’d like to become better than them [Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand]”
The Chennai boy admitted that the enormity of his potential record did affect him briefly during the match, but he brushed it away and concentrated at the task at hand.
“Before the game I didn’t feel any pressure, only during the game. But after I got my advantage, I felt better and then I converted it easily. I just forgot about the pressure and focused on my game,” he added.
Also read: Meet D Gukesh, the 12-year-old chess prodigy who has become India’s youngest Grandmaster
Gukesh received his penultimate norm at EKA|IIFL Investment Managers 4th Mumbai International Chess Tournament in Mumbai last week and had to go to Delhi soon after.
“There was very little preparation time. After Mumbai I went to Chennai, one day I took rest and spent time to my finally. Then I came straight to Delhi and played. Fortunately I played well,” the Std VII student, who is coached by Vishnu Prasad, said.
The son of two doctors, he is accompanied in Delhi by his mother Padma Kumari and will be joined by father this evening, but there won’t be a big celebrations.
At the venue, he was the cynosure of all eyes as he scripted a memorable win.
“Everybody was congratulating me, yeah it was nice,” said Gukesh.
But the conscientious youngster doesn’t think his record win will affect him or his game much going forward. “I don’t feel the think they [next few games] will feel any different, the confidence level will be very high but other than that I don’t think anything will be different,” he said.
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