India's D Gukesh moved to the fourth position in the latest FIDE (International Chess Federation) rankings on Thursday. He has now become India's highest ranked player. Gukesh Arjun has replaced Irigasi.
18-year-old Gukesh achieved this feat by defeating Germany's Vincent Keimer in the ongoing Tata Steel Chess Tournament in the Netherlands. This was his second win in the tournament.
Gukesh now has 2784 rating points, while Irigasi, India's number one player for some time, has slipped to fifth place with 2779.5 rating points. Norway's Magnus Carlsen tops the FIDE World Chess Ranking with 2832.5 points. American Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura (2802) is second and compatriot Fabiano Caruana (2798) is third. Now Gukesh is at the fourth position and Arjun Irigasi is at the fifth position.
D Gukesh was honored with the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award, the country's highest sports award, by the President of India, Draupadi Murmu, on 17 January.
Gukesh became the World Chess Champion in December Gukesh, 18, won the World Chess Championship title in December last year. He defeated defending champion Ding Liren of China 7.5-6.5 in the final. Gukesh is the first player in the world to win the title at such a young age. Earlier in 1985, Russia's Garry Kasparov won this title at the age of 22.
Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh won the World Chess Championship title in Singapore on 11 December. He beat China's Ding Liren 7.5-6.5.
Gukesh also won the Chess Olympiad This year the Chess Olympiad was held in Budapest from 10 to 23 September. India became champions in both the Open and Women's categories. In the open category, it was Gukesh who led India to victory by winning the final game.
India also became the champion in Chess Olympiad last year.
Who is De Gukesh? Gukesh D's full name is Dommaraju Gukesh. He is a resident of Chennai. Gukesh was born on 7 May 2006 in Chennai. He started playing chess at the age of 7. He was initially coached by Bhaskar Nagaiah.
Nagaiah has been an international chess player and home chess tutor in Chennai. After this Viswanathan Anand gave Gukesh information about the game as well as coaching. Gukesh's father is a doctor and mother is a microbiologist by profession.
Image Credit: Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).