Dr. Rajinikanth and his wife Dr. Padma would regularly play chess together for fun at their family home in India. Always at their side, watching wide-eyed, observing intensely as each piece was strategically moved on the board, was their son, Gukesh. The young boy was captivated by the calculated black and white dance before him.

“He would become fascinated with how the pieces worked,” Rajini tells The Athletic.

Over the next few weeks, Gukesh, still fresh into adulthood, could become the youngest-ever chess world champion. By qualifying for this month’s 2024 World Chess Championship in Singapore, the 18-year-old is already the youngest challenger to compete for the world title.

It has been a meteoric and surprising rise for a player who, until the summer of 2022, was still solely ranked as a junior. “It just happened by accident,” says Rajini, a surgeon. His son’s success wasn’t preordained, he says. Neither he nor his spouse, who is a microbiologist, had planned for or dreamed of their son becoming a phenomenon in the sport. “We never realized he was a special talent,” he explains. “It was the schools, teachers, and coaches who started to tell us, ‘This kid is talented, you should pursue more’.”

Starting on Monday, Gukesh will play titleholder Ding Liren, 32, of China in the best-of-14 classical games match that could last until December 13. For the first time in 138 years, two players from Asia will contest the final.

Gukesh, from the city of Chennai on the Indian south coast, a hotbed for chess talent, won the eight-player 2024 Candidates tournament in Toronto to set up the chance to become the first teenager to win the world title. Aged 17, in his first appearance at what is essentially the final round of World Championship qualifying, he overcame the odds and got the better of five more celebrated players — all with higher rankings — earning his title shot with five wins, one loss, and eight draws to finish with a score of nine out of 14 (one point for a win, half a point for a draw, and zero for a loss). Should he triumph in Singapore, he will become India’s second world chess champion after Viswanathan Anand.

Perhaps such success shouldn’t have been surprising given the records he broke as a child. Still young enough to be included in the International Chess Federation’s (FIDE) junior world rankings, he is the world’s top-ranked junior male player in classical chess, the longest format of the sport.

That he could beat the defending champion isn’t in the realm of fantasy, either. Gukesh, ranked fifth in the world in this month’s classical rankings, is the in-form player. Ding, currently 23rd, has had a difficult reign as world champion, taking a nine-month break from the sport last year for mental health reasons. He hasn’t won a classical game since January and has only played 44 classical games since becoming world champion.

“I am worried about losing very badly. Hopefully it won’t happen,” Ding said to chess app TakeTakeTake in September. At this week’s press conference, Ding said he wasn’t at his peak but said he was at “peace” and would review his previous best performances for inspiration.

Ding does, however, hold the better record in the pair’s head-to-head classical meetings, winning two and drawing once, and his peak FIDE rating of 2,816 is higher than Gukesh’s (2,794, reached in October).

But Magnus Carlsen, the five-time world champion who opted not to defend his world crown in 2023 but is still ranked as the world’s best classical player, has backed Gukesh to win, and urged the importance of Ding making a fast start.

“Ding cannot lose the first game… from what we’ve seen from Ding for the last one-and-a-half years, I don’t think he’ll come back from losing the first game, so I agree, hesitantly, that he’s going to be the first person to win a game, but I’m very uncertain,” he told chess.com. The Norwegian added: “The only way there’s going to be a low number of decisive games is that Ding gets chances and keeps missing them. We could see a bloodbath.”

‘Gukesh D’ as he is known, started playing chess at the age of seven, winning various junior tournaments before becoming, at the time, the second-youngest grandmaster, aged 12 years, seven months and 17 days. Grandmaster, awarded to players by governing body FIDE for life, is the highest title outside of world champion; today there are more than 1,850.

This year, he became the third-youngest to reach a FIDE rating of 2,700 after claiming two gold medals at the Chess Olympiad — a biennial international tournament that was held in Budapest, Hungary, and he is the youngest player to achieve a rating of 2,750.

Gukesh said his youth could be viewed as a negative and a positive heading into the final, but at this week’s press conference Ding said his opponent played with maturity “in many aspects”. Known for being an aggressive player, Gukesh, who recently revealed he was a fan of the sitcom Friends, is one of a number of young players making a name for himself in the sport. Ding recently decribed the new generation of players as fearless. “There are a lot born after 2000, they play fearlessly and are willing to try different strategies that the previous generation might not have,” he said, according to The Straits Times.

Gukesh is welcomed at Chennai International Airport after winning two gold medals at the FIDE Chess Olympiad (Photo by R. Satish Babu/AFP via Getty)

One of the coaches who told Gukesh’s parents about their son’s special ability and helped his development was Indian grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna, who coached the prodigy from 2017 to 2023.

They first met after Vishnu hosted a small training camp for students from Gukesh’s school, Velammal Vidyalaya, which has a great reputation for producing chess talents. Developing a strong mentality was a big focus point for Vishnu. “We discussed a lot of non-chess stuff about mindsets and how people in extreme sports behave,” Vishnu tells The Athletic. 

“We talked a lot about Alex Honnold (the American free solo climber) and many extreme athletes and what kind of mindsets they try to keep. I always emphasized that chess techniques come and go and can be played around with, so there is no one right technique. But there can be a right mindset that promises performance, and that is the difference between players rather than the chess itself.”

His parents never involved themselves in training, instead making sure life outside of the sport was settled. But, with the approval of Gukesh’s parents, Vishnu, experimenting with his approaches, resisted the use of computer or chess engine assistance until Gukesh was a grandmaster, the aim being to encourage Gukesh to think on his own.

Chess had a deeper impact, too, on the teenager. “He used to be very naughty,” says Rajini.

“He was the only child so whatever he wanted he had to get it sometimes. He used to have all these tantrums but once he started chess he became very observant, how he is now. He started becoming more calm, patient, and observant. Chess has changed him.”

Playing chess can cause mental fatigue because of the concentration required. Yet, Gukesh’s appetite for the game once saw him play 276 games in 30 tournaments across 13 countries over 16 months while squeezing in 10am-5pm sessions with Vishnu in between competitions.

The longest game at a World Chess Championship was in 2021 between Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi, taking seven hours and 45 minutes. Such mental focus can take its toll. After the ‘Moscow Marathon’, a World Championship contest between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov that lasted five months and 48 games, Karpov told a Russian magazine he had lost 10kg (22lb) in weight.

Gukesh could become the first Indian world champion since Viswanathan Anand (Photo by Marcus Brandt/picture alliance via Getty Images)

In Singapore, each classical game will follow the time control of 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game. From move 41, a 30-second increment will start. Players must remain poised, balanced and consider their moves deeply. A score of 7.5 points or more will win the world title. If the players are level after 14 classical games, a tie-break will be played on December 13. The right mindset is paramount, says Vishnu.

“It’s probably the biggest stage that anyone would get to, it’s all about nerves when you get there,” he says.

“He has been thriving under pressure. So far, he has always delivered in moments where he has a lot to lose and when things are hanging by a thread.”

History is on the line, and so too is a lot of money. The total prize pot for the World Championship is $2.5million, with each player earning $200,000 for each game they win. The remaining prize money will be split equally between the players. This is a significant hike from the €48,000 ($50,489 at current currency conversion) Gukesh banked from winning the Challenger tournament.

Even if Gukesh remains calm under the Singapore spotlight, his parents will not be relaxed. Padma does not watch her son’s matches because the experience is too stressful. Instead, she will wait for the results to come in.

“I also want to do that, because it is too stressful for us, but it is too difficult to stay away so it’s like a hide-and-seek. So I just watch once every half an hour or hour and just see what position he is in,” says Rajini.

Tournaments have taken Gukesh, accompanied by his father, all over the world. There have been sacrifices, but the family have few regrets.

“Two-thirds of the year we were travelling for tournaments — his mother got very little time to spend with us. That is one thing we regret. Otherwise, we are very happy with how things turned out and we are very fortunate,” says Rajini.

Coach Vishnu saw the pursuit of greatness first-hand. “There is no clear path to recreate what he has done,” he says. “A certain hyper-focus and sacrifice of a regular childhood, a regular school life, and a regular social life of a teenager, you give up all that and focus on the main thing and that is to get better at chess.”

There are increasingly more chess prodigies, but Gukesh has worked persistently to fulfil his potential. “I had no doubt he was going to do well but, still, he exceeded expectations,” says Vishnu.

Gukesh is following in the footsteps of a great: five-time world champion Anand, now the deputy president of FIDE and also from Chennai. Fittingly, Gukesh overtook him in the chess rankings last year to knock him off the top spot as India’s highest-ranked player, a position he had held for 37 years (although Arjun Erigaisi, in fourth place, currently holds that honour).

Anand dominated an era, including winning four consecutive World Championships between 2007 and 2012.

“Playing the world championship and winning the Candidates is trying to fill Anand’s shoes, which is something my generation tried but failed to do,” says Vishnu, 35.

“So it is very inspiring that Gukesh is close to putting India back on top of world chess, looking back and thinking, ‘That was the kid who was coming and training with me’.”

(Top image: Andrzej Iwanczuk/NurPhoto via Getty Images; design Eamonn Dalton)

It has been a rough year for the defending national champions, but on Thursday, the Wolverines got some great news: The nation’s No. 1 recruit, quarterback Bryce Underwood — an athletic 6-foot-4, 205-pound 17-year-old — announced he was flipping his commitment from LSU to Michigan.

After being committed to the Tigers for nearly a year, the move sent shock waves around the college football recruiting world. Football legend and Michigan alumnus Tom Brady, however, could see it coming.

A big piece in Underwood’s pledge to the Wolverines, a program source said, was that Brady was on several Zoom meetings with Underwood and became a great resource for the young QB.

Underwood grew up a Michigan fan and is from Belleville, Mich., just 20 minutes outside Ann Arbor. Wolverines coach Sherrone Moore preaches and recruits on the basis of “the best players in Michigan, go to Michigan.”

But former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh didn’t really seem interested in pursuing Underwood the way other top programs were. Not long after Harbaugh left for the Los Angeles Chargers’ top job in January, Sean Magee returned to Ann Arbor to become Michigan’s general manager after working in the Chicago Bears front office.

And Magee and Moore made Underwood a huge priority.

Yes sir! The Best Players in Michigan, Go to Michigan!! #ProcessOverPrize25 #GoBlue🔵

— Sherrone Moore (@Coach_SMoore) November 20, 2024

The two worked for months to repair the relationship with the star QB. Things kicked into high gear this week when Underwood spent two days around Michigan and felt very comfortable with the direction things are now heading with the program.

The Wolverines, less than a year removed from a national championship, are currently 5-5 and out of playoff contention.

“Everyone assumes we’re just handing this kid over eight figures, but that’s not true,” the source said.

pic.twitter.com/owaL5uEIfP

— Bryce Jay Underwood (@BryceUnderwoo16) November 22, 2024

Now that the Wolverines have their QB of the future in place, expect them to make a lot more noise on the recruiting front with the early signing period less than two weeks away.

Required reading

(Photo: Nic Antaya / UFL / Getty Images)

This article is part of the “Beyond the Track” series, a dive on the surrounding scene, glamour and culture that makes a Grand Prix.

LAS VEGAS — A dash of dancing fountains, a sprinkle of star power supplied by a collection of celebrity chefs, and even something to chase it all down with champagne. Welcome to the Bellagio Fountain Club, a perfect recipe of the trappings the Las Vegas Grand Prix offers that makes it the most unique race on the Formula One calendar.

At first taste, a who’s who of chefs coming together just hours before qualifying might be hard to swallow. Ah, not so, says Wolfgang Puck, explaining there are parallels between performing at a high level on the track and concocting a gourmet meal in the kitchen.

“A restaurant is exactly the same as a Formula One team. Both are like an orchestra,” Puck told The Athletic. “It’s exactly the same. Because everybody has to work together and everybody has to help each other. You have to really bring it on because it is also all about timing. In a restaurant, if you have three or four different stations and one order has this or that and you have five different dishes coming out for one table, you can’t have them all coming at the same time. So it’s organization and a lot of training.”

Puck is no F1 novice; he closely followed the European-centric sport as a boy in Austria. Naturally, his favorite driver was fellow Austrian Niki Lauda, who later became a good friend. The mere mention of the three-time world champion’s name causes Puck to smile, with him immediately reminiscing about watching Lauda race whenever F1 visited the street circuit in Long Beach, Calif.

Back then, Puck was a rising chef, on the precipice of becoming one of the first chefs to crossover into the mainstream culture, while Lauda was already recognized as an F1 legend. A friendship was formed, and each time Puck attends a grand prix, it brings back a flood of memories of watching races around the globe.

Puck was also here a year ago attending the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix, and he is wowed by how this race became an event, a word he emphasizes because how can a setting like this — the famed Bellagio fountains behind him, and a purposely constructed street circuit that winds through Las Vegas’ famous landmarks — be a mere race.

“I think (the grand prix) shows Las Vegas really in a good way because they race at night,” Puck said. “I really think it’s really an amazing thing to finally have it here. People can come from all over the world. There are more hotel rooms so close by, like I go to the Formula One in Budapest and they have very few hotel rooms, you have to stay 50 miles away in a little donkey hotel. Then, you need to get out of the parking lot. Like this year, we waited two-and-a-half hours to get out of the parking lot. That doesn’t happen here.”

Although champagne toasts and caviar dishes have always been synonymous with the globetrotting sport that races in exotic locales, there is no denying that F1 is presented much differently than it was even five years ago.

Propelled by the “Drive to Survive” effect, the boost in U.S. interest in the sport often credited to the Netflix docuseries, races have become such a spectacle that a gathering like this one featuring nearly 20 name chefs doesn’t feel out of place on a grand prix weekend.

And just as Puck is an example of a more traditional F1 fan, another attendee here represents the other side of the spectrum.

“My daughter. All my daughter,” Mark Wahlberg said, explaining how he discovered F1.

Like so many, “Drive to Survive” was the entry point for Grace Wahlberg becoming infatuated with the sport. In particular, she was drawn to McLaren teammates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Before too long, her newfound interest piqued her father’s own curiosity, eventually leading to Mark, the famed actor, pulling some strings so that Grace could get the chance to sit inside one of Norris’ older cars.

“She has a big crush on two of the guys, Oscar and Lando, and so she wanted to meet them,” Mark Wahlberg told The Athletic. “So me being a dad who likes to make things happen for my kids, I figured out how I could track Lando down and get a car sent to the house. It was cool for us to be able to spend some time together and enjoy something.”

How did actor Mark Wahlberg get into F1? “All my daughter,” he says. Daughter Grace is a fan of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. (Christopher Trim / Cal Sport Media via AP Images)

Donnie Wahlberg nods his head and smiles as his younger brother describes how he got into F1. It’s the kind of nod that implies, “I told you so,” because Donnie has long been a fan, discovering the sport and learning its intricacies when they toured Europe during the heyday of the boy band New Kids on the Block.

Donnie has lots of opinions on F1 but little time now to express them all. He has to jet to meet his wife. But before he departs, he wants to make one thing known: He loves Michael Schumacher. And while the debate among fans of who is better often centers on Schumacher, Ayrton Senna or Lewis Hamilton, Donnie leans in a different direction. His vote: Max Verstappen is the GOAT.

Mark gives his own smile as Donnie makes his point, though he prefers not to wade into the debate. Maybe Mark’s devotion to McLaren isn’t quite yet to the level of Grace’s or Donnie’s, though it doesn’t appear far off. Nor is his support mere lip service, instead it comes from a genuine place. He may be here at the Bellagio supporting his other brother Paul, a chef who’s worked in the restaurant industry since he was a teenager, but he’s also here because he’s a fan happy to be immersing himself in the event.

And here on a Friday afternoon atop a structure purposely built so fans could watch cars speed down Las Vegas Boulevard, F1 fans old and new intermingle. The event is all anyone is talking about.

“It’s a global event now,” Puck said. “Back then, Americans didn’t know Formula One. It wasn’t that popular. It’s not like today.”

The Beyond the Track series is part of a partnership with Chanel.

The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.

GO DEEPER

‘Perfect marriage of speed and glamour’: How Vegas becomes F1’s celebrity magnet

(Top photo: Jordan Bianchi / The Athletic)