World Chess Championship: Starting from November 25, 18-year-old Gukesh will made an audacious bid to become the youngest-ever winner of the prestigious World Chess Championship. If he succeeds in defeating Ding Liren, who currently wears the crown, Gukesh will be the 18th world champion in history.
This will be the first time that both the players competing in the World Chess Championship will be from Asia. Fittingly, the World Chess Championship match — which will be a battle spanning 14 games (plus tiebreaks if necessary) — will be contested in another Asian country as Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa hosts the showpiece event.
Superbet Rapid & Blitz Poland tournament. (Photo Courtesy Lennart Ootes)
Many grandmasters have picked Gukesh as the favourite. This list includes Magnus Carlsen, Garry Kasparov, Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri and grandmasters Pravin Thipsay and Abhijit Kunte.
Other grandmasters like Viswanathan Anand have given a note of caution for the teenage challenger.
Gukesh thrives in classical chess. But can he win when the pressure is at its peak at the World Chess Championship?
Ding Liren is formidable when in form. But can he find that form by the time the World Championship starts?
Those two questions will decide whether an 18-year-old joins an elusive list in chess that currently has only 17 names on it!
Full list of World Chess Championship winners
There have been 17 classical world champions since 1886, starting from Wilhelm Steinitz.
| No | Player | Times won | Years |
| 1 | Wilhelm Steinitz | 4 | 1886, 1889, 1890, 1892 |
| 2 | Emanuel Lasker | 6 | 1894, 1896, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1910 |
| 3 | Jose Raul Capablanca | 1 | 1921 |
| 4 | Alexander Alekhine | 4 | 1927, 1929, 1934, 1937 |
| 5 | Max Euwe | 1 | 1935 |
| 6 | Mikhail Botvinnik | 5 | 1948, 1951, 1954, 1958, 1961 |
| 7 | Vasily Smyslov | 1 | 1957 |
| 8 | Mikhail Tal | 1 | 1960 |
| 9 | Tigran Petrosian | 2 | 1963, 1966 |
| 10 | Boris Spassky | 1 | 1969 |
| 11 | Bobby Fischer | 1 | 1972 |
| 12 | Anatoly Karpov | 3 | 1975, 1978, 1981 |
| 13 | Garry Kasparov | 6 | 1985, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1993, 1995 |
| 14 | Vladimir Kramnik | 3 | 2000, 2004, 2006 |
| 15 | Viswanathan Anand | 4 | 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012 |
| 16 | Magnus Carlsen | 5 | 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2021 |
| 17 | Ding Liren | 1 | 2023 |
Format of the World Chess Championship games
Gukesh and Ding Liren will face off in classical format.
The time control in effect for all games will be thus: both players have 120 minutes to make the first 40 moves, from the 41st move they get additional time of 30 minutes (plus an increment of 30 seconds per move from move no 41).