18-year-old world chess champion whose father 'doesn't dare sit next to him and use the phone' during practice

World Chess Championship Shatranj Game Dommaraju

India's Gokesh Dumraju has surprised the elders of the chess world by becoming the world's youngest world chess champion. All this was possible thanks to his dramatic win over China's Ding Liren on Thursday.

18-year-old Domraju is four years younger than the previous record holder (the previous youngest world champion was 22). Russian player Garry Kasparov set this record in 1985 in Moscow at the age of 22.

Dumraju hails from the Indian state of Chennai and became a chess grandmaster at the age of 12. He had repeatedly expressed his dream of becoming a world champion.

In the year 2013, at the age of just seven, he saw the fight between Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen to become the world champion.

On Thursday, he took the lead in a four-hour match against Ding Liren when the Chinese made a silly mistake and lost his last powerful move.

Due to this mistake, 18-year-old Dumraju won the competition. In the world ranking, he is in the fifth position and in the second position in India.

Dumraju admitted in a press conference after his victory over Ding that he did not expect to become world champion so soon.

The moment when the young man controlled his nerves

Born in May 2006, Gokesh Domraju is the youngest chess player to reach this milestone. Over the past three years, he has achieved extraordinary success as a young player.

He had won gold medals for best performance in two previous Olympiads. In 2022, he led the Indian team to a bronze medal in Chennai. Then in Budapest in 2024 under his leadership, the Indian team won the gold medal.

He then won the Candidates Tournament, which allowed him to challenge Ding.