The Fide Candidates tournament concluded on Apr. 21, crowning Gukesh Dommaraju as the youngest ever winner of the candidates. He will now be able to challenge reigning world champion Ding Liren for the title of the World Chess Champion later in November.
In the Candidates, getting first place is the only result that matters, as only the winner will be able to challenge the current world champion. Thus, the Candidates sees more decisive games and less draws than in other tournaments. Players are more likely to play uncommon openings to throw off their opponents and bank on the surprise factor to win them the games. This leads to riskier play but also more exciting games.
The world’s consensus best player Magnus Carlsen was not in attendance. Although he qualified for the tournament by winning the 2023 FIDE Chess World Cup, the five time world champion refused to defend his title last year and will do the same this year. “Under the current format, I will not play at the candidates,” said Carlsen in an interview with Chess24. In his letter to the International Chess Federation (FIDE), Carlsen claims that the current format is unfair, as he believes the short amount of games leads to too much variance, leading to the best player not always winning the championship. FIDE has not listened to any of Carlsen’s suggestions to improve the tournament.
Going into the tournament, the favorites to win were Americans Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. However, Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi has won the previous two candidates and was in good form going into the tournament. With the Candidates being a notoriously punishing tournament for younger players, there were very low expectations for the other participants.
Going into the last round of the Candidates, Gukesh Dommaraju led the candidates with a score of 8.5, and Nakamura, Nepomniachtchi and Caruana were all tied for second with a score of 8. With the pairings being Nakamura vs Dommaraju and Nepomniachtchi vs Caruana, the four title contenders played each other for the first place spot. Nakamura played an aggressive queen’s gambit, though Dommaraju shut down any attacking chances and ended the game in a draw. Caruana vs Nepomniachtchi was a much more chaotic game. Despite being in a winning position multiple times throughout the course of the game, Caruana missed the winning idea, drawing their game as well. The 17-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju won the Candidates with a score of 9/14. “Right now, I’m just so relieved and so happy – I was following this crazy game [Caruana vs Nepomniachtchi] and I was completely emotional but now I’m feeling quite good,” said Dommaraju in the post-game interview.
Dommaraju’s victory makes him the youngest ever winner, and the second person from India to win the Candidates. “Right now, I’m mostly just happy about winning the tournament – I don’t really care about the ‘youngest’ and all these records but you know it’s a nice thing to say,” said Dommaraju. “The main thing is that I was in a right mindset during the event. From start to end I was in good spirits, I was fully motivated and I really wanted to win the event. When all these things come together it was helpful that I was sharp enough chess-wise and I managed to play some good chess. I would say mainly my mental attitude in this tournament was very good.”
