How India’s Gukesh Dommaraju became chess king in a cricket crazy country

Gukesh, a teenager from Chennai, is the youngest chess world champion. Here’s how he got there.

Indian chess prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju has become the youngest world chess champion ever after defeating defending champion Ding Liren of China.

Gukesh’s win on Thursday came in the last game of the 14-game World Chess Championship in Singapore. The otherwise cricket-crazed India is jubilant at the 18-year-old’s victory.

Here is more about Gukesh, and how he clinched the world title:

Gukesh comes from Chennai, the capital of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He attended Chennai’s Velammal Nexus School.

He started playing chess at the age of seven, Gukesh said in an interview uploaded in 2019 by the Gibraltar International Chess Festival.