Is 2025 a Dystopian Year?

A week after this blog's Christmas post, Inside Santa's Workshop (December 2024), let's follow up with a New Year's post. Maybe 'double down' is a better description of this post than 'follow up'.

'2025 plays chess.'
AI Comic Factory

Last year's New Year AI image, Father Time and the New Year Baby (January 2024), was filled with bearded old men, clocks, and babies. This year's image has a dystopian look to it. The two panels on the left show futuristic cities, while the bottom-right panel shows Big Brother watching two men play chess.

As for the top-right panel, the player on the left shows a younger version of the player on the right. Is the player maybe GM Ken Rogoff? See 'At the Center of AI Research' (August 2023) and follow the links for before/after images of the genial GM.

Gukesh's Influences in Winning the Crown

Following last week's post Globetrotting Gukesh (December 2024; Photo: 'Gukesh and parents the day after the closing ceremony'), in this short series on the career of the newly crowned World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju, I'll end the series (for now at least) by taking direction from a post on my main blog, 2024 Gukesh - Ding Liren, Closing Ceremony (December 2024; with link to find original photos). There I fulfilled a promise from a previous post, writing,

I hope to have at least one more post with photos from the official albums on Flickr. [...] There are many good photos available, but I picked four for this current post.

It turns out that of the 'many good photos available', some are directly applicable to this current series that looks at his career. Let's call these four photos 'influences'.

Photos: FIDE

Top to bottom, left to right (photographer/notes in parentheses):-
TL: Game 4: Anand makes the first move (Maria Emelianova)
TR: Paddy Upton, Gukesh, Westbridge's Sandeep Singhal (Maria Emelianova; 'A', 'C')
BL: Gukesh with parents (Maria Emelianova; 'B')
BR: Gukesh with trophy (Eng Chin An)

Notes:-

• 'A'; see also Working with Gukesh 'A Fascinating Journey' (December 2024), for a related post about Paddy Upton.
• 'B'; see also the 'Globetrotting Gukesh' post referenced above.
• 'C'; see also Gukesh win historic, India will dominate chess for many years like Russia: WestBridge Capital's Sandeep Singhal (moneycontrol.com; April 2024) • 'Sandeep Singhal and Viswanathan Anand together set up the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy four years ago, which is today a fountainhead of chess talent in India. WestBridge is also Gukesh’s sponsor.'

Did I write 'I'll end the series (for now at least)'? I doubt that I'll be able to stay away for long.

Inside Santa's Workshop

After the previous post in the (wannabe) weekly AI comics series, World Class Asian Players (December 2024), I took a break from the series for a few weeks. Reason? Laziness.

Now we're in the year-end holiday period where, although sloth is acceptable, I'll try harder. Reason? I can't do much less than I'm already doing.

This week it's Christmas. Next week it's New Year's. After that, we'll see.

'Christmas elves play chess.'
AI Comic Factory

A year ago I was just starting to experiment with the AI Comic software as a tool for illustrating the blog; see Foxy Christmas Chess (December 2023). Next year, who knows? How about a full-length 'Chess Christmas Comics'? For that I'll need a story.

Globetrotting Gukesh

While preparing a previous post, Gukesh in 2018 - Age 12 (November 2024), in this short series on Gukesh Dommaraju, I spotted a problem with the raw data:-

[Earlier] I listed a half-dozen tournaments played through the end of 2017. Here's the continuation of that list [with 17 events]. There's at least one important tournament missing from that list. I'll cover it in my next post in the series.

One of the most striking aspects of the 2018 list is that only six of the 17 events were played in India. Most of the others were played in Europe. Anyone who travels farther than the local supermarket knows that travel can be expensive. How did young Gukesh manage to travel so much?

With that question in the back of my mind, I found the following article by Johannes Fischer published shortly after the two 2024 Candidates Tournaments: Dommaraju Gukesh and Tan Zhongyi celebrate their birthdays (chessbase.com; May 2024). It said,

Gukesh's father was a surgeon and his mother a microbiologist. Gukesh took up chess at the age of 5 and quickly achieved success, whereupon his parents did all they could to support their son's career. His father even gave up his job as a surgeon to accompany Gukesh to tournaments. The parents also take their son out of school to give him more time to concentrate on chess.

The hard work and dedication paid off. In 2018, Gukesh became U12 World Champion and just one year later, in 2019, at the age of 12 years, seven months and 17 days, he secured the title of Grandmaster. At the time, he was the second youngest grandmaster of all time behind Sergey Karjakin and is regarded as one of the world's greatest talents.

Gukesh as 'U12 World Champion' is confirmed by World Cadet Chess Championships 2018 finished in Spain (old.fide.com). There we learn,

The World Cadet Chess Championships 2018 were held in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain, from 3rd of November to 15th of November 2018. The Championships were held for the age groups U08, U10 and U12, Girls and Open. A record number of 851 participants from 86 federations took part in the Championships. [...] 'U12 Open: 1. Gukesh D IND 10.0'

TWIC reported on the 'World Youth Championship' (TWIC1252: U18, U16, U14)...

The World Youth Championship took place in Porto Carras 20th to 30th October 2018.

...but not on the later 'World Cadet Championship' (U12, U10, U08). [NB: While I was preparing this post, the Wikipedia page World Youth Chess Championship (wikipedia.org), was vandalized to replace Gukesh's name by another name for both 2018 and 2020.]

Fast forward to the current year. After the Candidates tournament, where Gukesh earned the right to play for the World Championship as challenger, another Chessbase article, The dream becomes a reality: Gukesh’s victory in a historic event (chessbase.com; April 2024), posited,

The importance of a strong support system • To be successful in anything, one needs to have a great support system. D Gukesh was surrounded by his father Dr. Rajini Kanth, his second Grzegorz Gajewski, and Westbridge Capital sponsor Sandeep Singhal. [plus photo of all four]

Note the spelling 'Rajini Kanth', in two words. I've seen the same in one word, 'Rajinikanth' [-jini-], as well as 'Rajnikanth' [-jni-]. The single word 'Rajinikanth' appears to be the preferred spelling.

2024 FIDE World Championship - Singapore

'Gukesh and parents' (the day after the closing ceremony)
Photo: FIDE / Maria Emelianova

Fans of Magnus Carlsen will remember the role his father Henrik played when the young future World Champion was climbing to the top. While there is no guarantee that parental support will ensure future success, lack of that support might well hinder it.

Hackney Wick Street Art

This month's featured Flickr post is the sixth to highlight chess street art (aka graffiti) in the long running Flickr series on this blog. Use the search box on the right navigation bar to find the rest.

Top: Detail from bottom.
Bottom: Core246 Graffiti, Hackney Wick © Flickr user duncan cumming under Creative Commons.

Both images carried the same description:-

Core vs Tris chess battle; Bishop takes Knight!

If there is anything familiar about the image, its title, or its description, that's because the previous street art / graffiti post, Shoreditch Street Art (May 2024; 'This is the first piece in a chess battle between Tris and Core246.'), was signed by the same photographer. And there are many more images, most having nothing to do with chess, in the album Core246 / Core247.

Gukesh Debuts in Google News

For the past few weeks I've been running a series on the early career of Gukesh Dommaraju, aka Gukesh D. The two most recent posts were:-

• Gukesh in 2018 - Age 12 (29 November 2024), and
• Gukesh in 2018 - Scores & Rating (06 December 2024)

That second post ended,

In the first event on the 2018 list, he was rated 2362; in the last event, he was rated 2466. He started the year with a CM title and ended as an IM. In a few more months, he would earn the GM title.

With a bit of luck, I discovered more info about the IM/GM titles. Along with my monthly in-depth look at Google News, last seen in World Championship Yahoos 2024 (November 2024), I receive a daily report of chess news under the title 'Google Alert - Daily Digest'. This week I ran a search for references to Gukesh in my Google Alert archive -- it goes back to 2012 -- and was pleased to find a few news articles covering the GM's early career. The earliest was:-

• 2018-03-13: Gukesh making all the right moves (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) • 'To say that 11-year-old newly-crowned International Master Gukesh breathes chess will be an understatement. Even as children of his age are busy cramming up school syllabus, Gukesh is charting his next move on the chess board. Having taken to the game in 2013, Gukesh is today one of the many prominent players to have emerged out of the city. Gukesh, who became India's latest IM at the conclusion of the 34th Open de Cappelle la Grande chess tournament in France, took to the sport in 2013.'

The first 'Gukesh in 2018' post listed the French tournament with relevant TWIC info:-

TWIC 1218 • 34th Cappelle Open 2018; Sat 3rd Mar 2018; Sat 10th Mar 2018; Cappelle la Grande; FRA; 9 Rounds; Swiss; Time Control: 90m:30m+30spm(1) • 7.0-2.0; 2360

The next two 'Google Alert' mentions of Gukesh were:-

• 2019-01-16: Gukesh Becomes 2nd Youngest Chess Grandmaster In History (chess.com; IM Rakesh) • 'At the age of 12 years, 7 months, and 17 days, Indian prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju became the second youngest grandmaster in chess history. He scored his third grandmaster norm at the 17th Delhi International Chess Grandmaster Open today in New Delhi, India. Despite the recent torrid tournament schedule for Gukesh, the world record of Sergey Karjakin still narrowly stands, this time by just 17 days!', and
  
  
• 2020-04-07: Coronavirus lockdown: Teen chess wizards keep composure; stay busy with online events (deccanherald.com) • 'Young they might be but restless? Certainly not. R Praggnanandhaa, D Gukesh and P Iniyan -- the teen brigade of Indian chess is unfazed about being confined to home due to the national lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus [...]'

Then follows a pause of more than two years, undoubtedly due to the various covid-19 lockdowns in effect all over the world.

• 2022-08-05: India's teen talent shines as Chennai Olympiad breaks records (theguardian.com; Leonard Barden) • 'The standout first half Olympiad team has been India 2, with its average age of 19 and its already iconic top board Gukesh D (as he is now invariably called rather than Dommaraju Gukesh). The 16-year-old son of a surgeon and a microbiologist has come a long way from when, at 11, he incurred Nigel Short's displeasure.' [NB: for letting Short's clock run when the GM failed to punch it]

The Barden article continued,

Gukesh has been in stellar form in 2022, winning five first prizes in succession in Spain. His rating has shot past the elite 2700 mark, a feat achieved at a younger age by only Wei Yi, Magnus Carlsen and Alireza Firouzja. He has won all his seven games so far in Chennai, including his impressive win over Alexey Shirov where he encouraged the former world title challenger to launch one of his Fire on Board attacks so as to refute it by superior strategic and endgame play.

Gukesh is making a vast impression in Chennai, one that can be compared with five of the great Olympiad debuts by future world class players: Paul Keres at Warsaw 1935, Bent Larsen at Moscow 1956, Mikhail Tal at Munich 1958, Judit Polgar at Thessaloniki 1988, and Vlad Kramnik at Manila 1992.'

At every milestone in his meteoric career, Gukesh compared favorably to the greatest of the chess greats. It's little wonder that he became the youngest World Champion of all time.

December 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover'

What do the Chess Life issues of December 1974 and December 1999 have in common? Yes, they are obviously the next in the 'On the Cover' series last seen in November 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (November 2024). On top of that, they were both dominated by rating lists.

Left: '?' (also 'Special Yearbook Issue!')
Right: '1999... 2000... and still going strong!'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Anatoly Karpov: if he beats Korchnoi, and if Fischer and FIDE cannot resolve their differences, he will be World Champion in 1975. Match games continue [inside].

Karpov's previous cover appearance was May 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (May 2024; 'Anatoly Karpov and Tigran Petrosian, winners of their quarterfinal candidates matches.') Everyone who knows anything about modern chess history knows what happened in 1975. I suppose we'll see the story unfold in next year's 'On the Cover' posts.

The December 1974 CL&R was 108 pages. Of those, 70 were allocated to the '1975 USCF Yearbook', and of those, 52 were allocated to the rating list. The Karpov - Korchnoi match, the inspiration for the cover, was a single page, with only raw game scores for games 11-21.

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

No, we will not enter into the argument as to when the millennium arrives. We do knows that the end of December 31, 1999, will usher in a new year. Appropriately, the babe (2000) is playing the decisive Rg7+ against the old man (1999). The artist, Jose Angel Pardo, of Orlando, Florida, notes "That was the winning move I played in the first game I was ever able to beat my father."

Whether you consider it to be the millennium or just the beginning of a new year, one thing is clear: Chess is still going strong. Of our 86,000 members, fully 74,000 played at least one rated game of chess between October 1998 and October 1999. We've separated the Annual Rating List from the rest of the magazine and included a few items we hope you will find useful throughout the new year. And that includes a comprehensive listing of all changes to the Official Rules of Chess, 4th Edition.

Again we see a rating list. Of the 128 pages in the December 1999 CL, 49 were allocated to the list. Interspersed throughout the list were a number of interviews by Jerry Hanken, including one with 13-year old Lawrence Trent for the World Open and another with 8-year old David Howell. The same Howell, now a GM, commentated for FIDE on the recent World Championship match between Ding Liren and Gukesh.

There was more to the 'On the Cover' introduction for the same December CL. It continued,

Transition is never easy or particularly palatable for many. The Executive Board, in closed session, passed an enigmatic resolution to terminate the contract of Michael Cavallo as our Executive Director. I say enigmatic not as a judgement as much as a statement of fact.

After four paragraphs on the same subject I still didn't have a clue why this was newsworthy for the general CL readership. There is a ton of relevant information in the rgcp archive at groups.google.com, e.g. search?q=Cavallo, but who has the time to plow through it? For a previous cover illustration by Jose Angel Pardo, see September 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (September 2024).