Gukesh to face two players who helped him lift World Chess Championship in Tata Steel tournament in January

D. Gukesh reflects on his historic World chess championship win and looks forward to the Tata Steel tournament.

After his historic triumph at the World chess championship in Singapore a fortnight ago, D. Gukesh is looking forward to his next event. The Tata Steel tournament at Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands, starting on January 17, will present an interesting challenge for him — he will face off with two men that had helped him win the World title.

Vincent Keymer and P. Harikrishna are included in the tournament’s strong line-up. So how would it be playing against them after they helped him become, at 18, the youngest World champion in history?

“Tata Steel is a very important tournament in the chess calendar that I always look forward to, and as usual I will try to be at my best and give my full effort, “ Gukesh told The Hindu. “Every player is super strong in the field and will be competitive and most of them are good friends off the board. But over the board they are all my rivals and the same applies to Vincent and Hari. We will fight hard on board and have fun off it!”

Keymer and Harikrishna were helping Gukesh from Spain. They would do the preparation and relay the information to coach Grzegorz Gajewski, who was with Gukesh in Singapore.

The Chennai youngster had started as the overwhelming favourite, but had Gukesh got off to a bad start, losing the opening game, that too with white pieces. But he recovered quickly enough, by posting a win in the third game to equalise the score in the match.

Two weeks later, looking back at his comeback, he said how important the victory in that game was and how he was affected by the defeat in the 12th game. “That comeback win will always remain a cherished memory,” he said. “But then I let go of the lead in the match with a loss in the 12th game. That triggered extreme emotions and tested my self belief and composure. I hope it is a great lesson for me for the future.”

If he were to pick one move from the ones he made in all those 14 games, which could that be?