D Gukesh’s victory in the 2024 World Chess Championship, following a blunder by Ding Liren, had been questioned by former world champions like Magnus Carlsen. However, Viswanathan Anand has provided an epic response to silence all the detractors of the young Indian chess Grandmaster.
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Indian chess legend Viswanathan Anand has hit back at the critics of new world champion D Gukesh including world No.1 Magnus Carlsen who had questioned the classical chess format and the 18-year-old’s victory over Chinese Grandmaster Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship 2024.
Gukesh defeated Liren in the final Game 14 last month in Singapore
to become the youngest chess world champion of all time. The World Chess Championship 2024 was heading toward the tie-breakers after the match was tied at 6.5-6.5 before Ding made a last-ditch blunder on move 55. The 55.Rf2 move allowed Gukesh to win the match with an extra pawn in the king pawn ending.
Ding’s costly blunder led to harsh criticism from some former world champions including Russian Vladimir Kramnik who even labelled the results as the
“End of chess as we know it”.
Five-time winner, Carlsen, questioned
using classical chess to decide the world champion. “It’s hard to say exactly what measures the best player overall. I would say that right now, if you want the kind of chess in which you need the most well-rounded game, classical chess is probably the worst way because it’s sort of too forgiving. It’s too easy to mask the deficiencies in your game,” he said.
Anand silences Gukesh’s critics
While criticism is never going to end, five-time world champion and former no.1, Anand, has come up with the best reply for Gukesh’s detractors. The 55-year-old FIDE vice-president explained that the 55.Rf2 mistake by Ding did not happen in a vacuum rather it was manufactured by Gukesh’s relentless attacking game.
“Gukesh never really changed the strategy of pushing. Unexpected things happened during the match, but he was there the next day, pushing again. The rook [blunder] didn’t happen in a vacuum,” Anand said at an event recently.
Earlier Gukesh had also shown great maturity in handling the criticism as he said that the quality of the game is not always the most important thing in a world championship but “willpower and character” are equally important.
“I get that maybe in some of the games, the quality was not high but I think the world championship matches are decided not purely by chess but by who has the better character and who has the better willpower. And I think those qualities, I did show quite well,”
he told BBC after creating chess history.
After skipping the 2024 World Rapid and Blitz Championships, Gukesh
will return to action with Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2025 at the Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands which will start on 17 January.