D Gukesh responds to Magnus Carlsen’s criticism of World C’ship victory, remarks ‘And the pure chess part, it was…’

D Gukesh reigned supreme in Singapore, as he defeated defending champion Ding Liren at the World Chess Championship on Thursday. The win made the Indian Grandmaster the youngest-ever world champion at the age of 18. The decisive Game 14 began on an equal footing, with Liren trying his best to force a tie-breaker. But a massive blunder by Liren saw Gukesh come out on top with a 7.5-6.5 victory.

After his win, Gukesh was extremely emotional as he was seen crying his eyes out. Meanwhile, it sent social media into a state of frenzy as fans began to congratulate him for his victory. But it was downplayed by former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, who took to X, and called the match as the ‘end of chess as we know it’, expressing his displeasure with its quality. Kramnik also labelled Liren’s blunder as ‘childish’. Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen also seemed to support Kramnik’s views and appeared to be dissatisfied with the standard of the match. He called it ‘a second or third-round match of an open tournament.’

D Gukesh responds to Magnus Carlsen

Gukesh was asked if he was hurt by Carlsen’s comments, and he had a different perspective. Speaking to BBC World, he said, “Not really.”

“I get that maybe in some of the games, the quality was not high but I think the world championship matches are decided not purely by chess but by who has the better character and who has the better willpower. And I think those qualities, I did show quite well.”

He pointed out that despite the low quality of the match, he managed to perform at critical moments. “And the pure chess part, it was not at a very high level as I would have liked it to be because it’s a new experience for me. So the workload was different, the pressure was different,” he said.

“It’s understandable that I was a bit off but I managed to strike at the critical moments, which I am happy about,” he added.

Despite criticism from Carlsen and Kramnik, Gukesh received support from India legend Viswanathan Anand. Gukesh had his FIDE coronation on Friday in Singapore, where he was crowned as the world champion.