18-year-old Gukesh D becomes youngest World Chess Champion after shocking mistake from his rival

The 2024 World Chess Champion has risen, and he's the youngest ever. Yesterday, during the World Chess Championship 2024, Gukesh Dommaraju, known as Gukesh D, has defeated previous champion Ding Liren. The match consisted of 14 games in total: Liren won 2, Dommaraju won 3, and the rest ended in draw, meaning the whole match ended 7.5-6.5 (winning is one point, draw if half for each).

The most likely scenario would have been a tiebreak to be played the following day, but Liren made a shocking mistake in the 14th and final game. In fact, initially Dommaraju didn't realize the magnitude of the mistake his rival had commited, until he smiled.

Liren realized his fatal mistake, but it was too late. "I was totally in shock when I made a blunder, his facial expression shows that he was very excited, happy", the Chinese said, as reported by Chess.com.

Gukesh burst into tears after the victory, and said it was the single greatest moment of his life. As India Today reported, when he was eleven, Gukesh said to a reporter that his dream was "to become the youngest world champion", in a video that has become viral.

Now, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has congratulated him, as well as Viswanathan Anand, the previous Indian World Chess Champion. The former youngest champion was Garry Kasparov, 22 when he become champion for the first time in 1985, a title he defended six times.

Curious to test it for yourself? Innternational Chess Federation (FIDE) has posted the full match recreated by Google, so you can see the exact movement that caused Liren final mistake. Precisely, that movement is 55.Rf2??.