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.