D. Gukesh, the youngest challenger in history, has earned his place in the World Chess Championship after winning the qualifying event, the Candidates tournament, held in Toronto. In the final round, he drew with second seed Hikaru Nakamura of the United States. Gukesh had to wait for the result of the game between top-seeded American Fabiano Caruana and Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi, who won the last two editions. If that game ended in a draw, as it did, Gukesh would be declared outright champion and that’s exactly what happened. With nine points, he finished atop the table of eight players who played each other twice.
In the women’s tournament held simultaneously, Tan Zhongyi from China emerged victorious with nine points, finishing 1.5 ahead of her competition. Indian players Koneru Humpy and R. Vaishali tied for second place with 7.5 points each, along with Lei Tingjie from China and Aleksandra Goryachkina from Russia as other participants in this category. In terms of men’s play, D. Gukesh led the open category with nine points while Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Ian Nepomniachtchi (FIDE), and Fabiano Caruana (USA) finished closely behind him with 8.5 points each respectively; R Praggnanandhaa was another Indian player who took part in this tournament and ended up securing seven points overall while Vidit Gujrathi (Ind), Alireza Firouzja (Fra), Nijat Abasov (Aze) also participated in this championship event held in Toronto but could not manage to secure enough points to make it to their respective championship matches against reigning champions Ding Liren for men and Ju Wenjun for women respectively which were scheduled to take place later this year amidst global pandemic concerns by officials from chess federations across different countries including FIDE(International Chess Federation).
