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Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

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41–50 of 484 posts

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#41
post #4

At 18, this is no small thing. Kasparov was 22, I don't see Gukesh's record being broken for a long while

With 12-year-old GMs running around it's hard to know how long. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_prodigy

Those statistics blow my mind. For reference, Bobby Fischer became a GM at fifteen.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the deal with Gukesh's last name In Tamil Nadu, an initial is often used in the surname due to the Periyar/Dravidian movement in the 20th century. Furthermore, plenty of people in Tamil Nadu historically didn't even use surnames. Gukesh is Telugu, but his family are Chennai natives. Chennai becoming part of TN instead of Telugu-speaking Andhra Pradesh was very politically charged in the early days of India.

Ah, so it's an anti-caste thing?

Historically yes. But in 2024 it's just a naming convention now. Being Telugu in Tamil Nadu, they probably adopted Tamil naming conventions to make life easier.

States in India are basically different countries, and the existing state borders for most states don't make sense.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#43

That was a absolutely horrible finish to a really exciting championship if you ask me. For anyone who doesn't know, there was a lot of drama because Gukesh was playing amazingly coming into this (eg winning the gold medal on board 1 at the olympiad in crushing style) and Ding had been playing terribly. Then there were 13 games of back and forth with stalwart defending and imaginative computer preparation by both side…

Wow great synopsis. Sounds like Ding just ran out of mental stamina just before buzzer.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#44
post #29
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of the opening, Chess players tend to call them combinations, and it's not really memorisation as such, it's pattern recognition, and it's a very difficult skill to master. Outside of the opening, it's not rote memorisation, it's a mix of pattern recognition and calculation. You have to spot familiar patterns, but from a "distance", and calculate whether the differences in your specific instance are crucial o…

Yea played myself for a while but didn't want to remember 300 openings for both colors. Chess is only fun if both people are equally bad at it.

You don't need to remember 300 openings. Remembering openings is the most straight forward thing to study - you just need to remember them and then select in game as your opponent gets a choice as to which of those 300 you are playing as well. That is hard to do in practice, but it is easy to explain.

For most people you are better off ignoring all that though. Instead you should train tactics and endgames. Both are easy enough to explain, but it isn't useful to just memorize them. You have to see when they apply even though there are other unrelated pieces on the board. You have to see when they apply even though the pieces are in slightly different positions from what you studied. You have to see how they will apply after complex sequence of moves even though they don't apply yet.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#45
post #5

For being the headline, they sure hid his age pretty well. Not at the opening paragraph nor end of the article, nor photo captions near the top or bottom. cmd+f "years" 0 results cmd+f "age" 0 results And scanning for numbers is useless since most of the article is chess moves written out.

My point exactly.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#46
post #5

For being the headline, they sure hid his age pretty well. Not at the opening paragraph nor end of the article, nor photo captions near the top or bottom. cmd+f "years" 0 results cmd+f "age" 0 results And scanning for numbers is useless since most of the article is chess moves written out.

For someone who has complained a LOT about this information not being readily available, you haven't put it here for us either.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With 12-year-old GMs running around it's hard to know how long. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_prodigy

Those statistics blow my mind. For reference, Bobby Fischer became a GM at fifteen.

Online and computer chess have changed things. 12 year old kids generally can't travel to tournaments, but they can play against other strong players or against the computer online.

Fischer lived in New York, and therefore could play in the Manhattan Chess Club.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#48
post #39

I was struck by Ding's thoughtfulness, objectivity and humility when asked how he felt after the match (while clearly utterly dejected): > How do you feel? > I think I played my best tournament of the year. I think it was a fair tournament in the end. I have no regrets. > Any message for fans? > Thank you, I will continue to play, I hope I can show strength like this time. Gukesh was equally as objective, humble, and…

Absolutely.

Nepo and Magnus seem to be cut from a different cloth, although Magnus has never had a moment where he could demonstrate whether or not he can be humble, because he has always just crushed.

Anish Giri kind of took a shot at Magnus (with respect to his retiring from classical chess) in his early commentary with Petr Leko a few days ago. People are funny, and one doesn't usually get to be where Ding and Gukesh are without having a bit of an edge to their personality. That's what makes Ding and Gukesh so special to me.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With 12-year-old GMs running around it's hard to know how long. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_prodigy

Those statistics blow my mind. For reference, Bobby Fischer became a GM at fifteen.

Yes, they didn't know this back then that it was possible. If they had known, they would have certainly made Fischer a GM much much sooner
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