Gukesh Dommaraju caresses the Candidates: a star is born

He doesn't look like it, due to his maturity, his game and his thick beard, but Gukesh Dommaraju is 17 years old and could become the youngest world champion in the history of chess.. “It's a killing machine,” defined the Spanish grandmaster Miguel Santos in the broadcast of the games on Chess24.. Yesterday, Gukesh achieved two milestones: becoming the leader in the Candidates tournament and relegating Ian Nepomniachtchi to second place. The second achievement might seem minor, but the Russian had played 41 games in a row, in the three Candidates he has played, without ever falling below first position.. There was no precedent for something like this.

This Saturday, Gukesh made an absolute crack decision, as brilliant as the best of his plays. At one point, his rival, Alireza Firouzja, was pressed for time. The most obvious temptation was to complicate the game even more to provoke an error from his rival.. But the Indian, although he had more minutes in reserve, did not want to win because of an enemy failure, but because of his own successes, so he repeated moves a couple of times to reach move 40.

When that happens, players get an extra half hour and can better plan their next actions.. He therefore gave his rival a break, but above all he gave himself the luxury of spending more than ten minutes to discover the best plan for victory.. Of course, he found it, although the path remained uncertain and that half-hour gift soon disappeared amid new complications.

Last brutal test

On matchday 14, the last of the tournament being held in Toronto, the Indian will start as the new leader, although he will still have to overcome a very difficult test. It has to contain, at least, the American Hikaru Nakamura, number 3 in the world and much more experienced than him. Naka is another serial killer, a guy you don't want to mess around with..

The Japanese-born grandmaster said he came to Canada to have fun, on vacation, an attitude that has proven to be a winner.. After each round, he comments on his games on the internet for his hundreds of thousands of followers and on his rest days he has not hesitated to play rapid chess tournaments on Chess.com. Hikaru earns more money as a streamer than as a chess player, but the boost that the assault on the World Championship would give him would be huge, in followers and in his economy..

To get there, the American only needs victory, however, like the other two pursuers of Gukesh, the also American Fabiano Caruana and the Russian Nepomniachtchi. The tables are of no use to anyone, which allows us to predict an epic day. The three pursuers of the Indian were just the three favorites before the start of the tournament. That a 17-year-old boy has beaten them is something that only entered into the plans of the Indian chess player himself, who works like an animal to surpass all his brilliant predecessors in precocity..

This Saturday, Nepo and Naka disappointed a little with some fearful tables. The game was good, but at the critical moment no one wanted to risk it. They preferred to secure the half point and wait for the decisive day, surely without counting on the victory of Gukesh, who gave a new lesson in perseverance and strategy against Firouzja. Despite some flashes, the Frenchman has once again disappointed in this tournament, after his fiasco in Madrid two years ago. A revealing fact is that in the 13 games played he has dropped ten places in the FIDE classification, from sixth to 16.. Fate wanted him to exchange positions with Gukesh, who has gone from 16th to 6th.

What happens if there is a tie

Anything can still happen, including several chances of equal points between two or more players in the first position of the Candidates. In that case, quick tiebreaker games would be played the next day, Monday. For many, it would be the desired ending because it would prolong the excitement of an unforgettable tournament.. For others, it would be an unfair solution, because it is not serious to resort to rapid chess to resolve equality in classic. In that scenario, Nakamura would be a favorite if he manages to be one of the players who finish in first position.

The other chess player who did his homework yesterday in Toronto was Fabiano Caruana, who beat the Indian Praggnanandhaa in the longest game of the day, only one year older than Gukesh.. The 18-year-old boy resisted like a champ, but Fabi is a human calculator and ended up finding the solution to all the riddles that Pragg posed.. His 'sprint' has been tremendous, like Nakamura's, measured perfectly to hunt down Nepo, without both knowing that the real hare was Gukesh.

Tan Zhongyi, half a title in his pocket

In the Women's Candidates, the excitement was much less because the Russians fell off their horses early.. Two Chinese women were fighting for first place, but yesterday the leader, Tan Zhonyi, drew against Goryachkina while Lei Tingjie was beaten by another amazing chess player..

India's Vaishali Rameshbabu, Pragg's older sister, achieved her fourth consecutive victory. It is already tied for third place and if it has not finished higher it is because before this unstoppable streak it had another disastrous one, in which it suffered four defeats in a row.. This Saturday Vaishali defeated Lei, who no longer depends on herself to reach Tan.

Barring a miracle, the latter will be the challenger to the world champion, also Chinese Ju Wenjun.. In women's chess there is less variety of denominations of origin, which impoverishes the spectacle a bit. One of the hopes to change this in the short term is the rise of the Spanish Sara Khadem, who is already thirteenth in the world and who should try to sneak into the next Candidates.