The All India Chess Federation (AICF) is assessing the possibility of hosting the World Chess Championship in India with the 17-year-old chess Grandmaster (GM) D. Gukesh qualifying to challenge world champion China's GM Ding Liren.
The match will be played in November. Hosting rights will be awarded by FIDE, the world body, through a bidding process.
Gukesh created history on Monday by becoming the youngest player to win the FIDE Candidates tournament in Toronto, scoring nine points in 14 rounds, half a point ahead of several other players, and qualifying as the challenger for the world chess title,
"We are assessing the situation. There will be more clarity on the subject in a couple of days. Once we understand what is needed to host the event, then we will decide," AICF President Nitin Narang told IANS. According to him, sponsors and government support are needed to host the world title event.
While Narang declined to confirm it, IANS reports that some corporate groups have been sounded out for sponsoring the title match if India successfully bids for the prestigious event.
This time around, the world title competition has better chances of coming back to the birthplace of chess or 'chaturangam' if one goes by the views of chess masters.
"I believe Gukesh will be the slight favourite against Ding Liren. The world champion is a very good player. However, he has not been very active and his form is not at its peak," former women’s world champion (1996-99), Grandmaster Susan Polgar told IANS when queried about the Indian's chances of becoming a world champion.
India has the experience of successfully holding the World Chess Championship and also the Chess Olympiad. The world title match between then Champion Vishwanathan Anand and the challenger Magnus Carlsen was held in Chennai. At that time, Anand lost the title to Carlsen.
In 2022, India successfully hosted the 44th Chess Olympiad in Chennai in which about 1,737 players from 186 countries participated.
Interestingly, the Chennai Chess Olympiad - a team event - could also be described as the "Gukesh Olympiad" as he won seven consecutive games, an Olympiad record of sorts.
Gukesh also won the individual gold medal playing on the top board and his team – India-1 won the Olympiad bronze medal.
As per FIDE, the World Championship Match consists of 14 games and the player who scores 7.5 points or more wins the Match, and no further games are played. If the score after 14 games is equal, the winner is decided on a tiebreak.
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