World Chess Championship: ‘I thought Singapore could be an ideal venue with many people of Chinese, Indian origin’, says GM Kevin Goh

Singapore Chess Federation CEO Kevin Goh reflects on his role in Gukesh's journey to the World Championship, including hosting the match.

At the Chennai Chess Olympiad, Singapore’s first ever Grandmaster Kevin Goh Wei Mingh watched, like everybody else, in awe D. Gukesh posting one victory after another on the top board for the India-2 team. The teenager went on to post an incredible eight wins in a row and led India to the bronze medal.

That wasn’t the first time Goh was coming across Gukesh, though. It happened some four years earlier, at the Bangkok Chess Open tournament. The Chennai lad didn’t even have a GM norm then. (You need three, and you need a certain number of points for a norm from a tournament featuring Grandmasters).

Goh flashes that smile of his, which reaches all the way to his eyes, as he tells The Hindu about his own contribution towards Gukesh’s stunning journey as the youngest challenger for the World championship in history. He lost to the boy in the penultimate game.

That helped Gukesh clinch his maiden GM norm. Goh then was seeking his final norm, which he would get another couple of months later.

“I remember that game vividly and the opening was London System,” he says. “I had white, but he easily equalised in the opening. I reached some unpleasant isolated Queen’s pawn position and he just grinded, you know, the whole endgame.”

Six years later, Goh is glad that he has played a key role in bringing Gukesh to his country for the World championship match. He is Singapore Chess Federation’s CEO and was the man who mooted the idea of bidding for the match, for which two Indian cities, Chennai and New Delhi were also in the race.

“Being a neutral venue helped,” says Goh. “I had thought about it back in April when Gukesh won the Candidates tournament. I thought Singapore could be an ideal venue with the multiracial society we have with a lot of people of Chinese and Indian origins.”