Eighteen-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju’s win in his first ever World Championship Match is the triumph of a youngster’s fearless determination and unwavering self belief. With his victory in the final classical game of his 14 game Match against Ding Liren, Gukesh smoothly transitioned from Youngest Challenger to the 18^th World Chess Champion.

The Final position from this game will likely be seen on the back of many T shirts in the months to come!

Ding Liren (2728) vs D. Gukesh (2783), Game 14, WCH 2024.

Final Position of the Game, and Match!

Ding Liren playing White here, resigned. He shook hands with his opponent, and left the Board quickly, as he realized that White would lose this position by force; thereby allowing Gukesh to savour his moment of triumph all by himself inside the ‘Fish Tank’ tournament venue.

Let us discuss what factors led Ding to resign: Black is a pawn up in this endgame, with the more advanced pawns, and after his last move 58…Ke5, Black has brought his King in Direct Opposition against White’s King, thus dominating his counterpart. These factors combine secure a decisive advantage for Black.

Black’s winning plan

Black has three ideas to secure victory in the current position. One would be to sacrifice his ‘f’ pawn so that when White captures it with his ‘g’ pawn, Black’s g4 pawn’s path to the Queening square gets cleared up. To avoid this White must always keep his King near the Kingside so that he would remain within the ‘Square’ of Black’s ‘g’ pawn.

Another plan for Black would be to advance his King towards White’s Kingside and capture the g3 pawn for free. Once this is achieved, Black’s f- and g-pawns would happily march towards promotion.

Black wins if his King can capture White’s g3 pawn too.

For example if Black achieves a position like in the Diagram above, he can play his King to h2 and simply Queen the ‘g’ pawn with the support of his King. This position is infact winning for Black even without the extra pawn on f5, as long as he can get his King to h2 (or sometimes f2 )to Queen the ‘g’ pawn.

To prevent this, White will utilize his King’s position to obstruct Black’s progress. He does this best by keeping his King in the Centre.

The third method involves exchanging the f-pawn for the g-pawn and then promoting the remaining pawn on g4 to a Queen. To counter this plan, White had positioned his King on e3, but after Black’s final move in the game 58…Ke5, it is now White’s turn to play, forcing their king to retreat. With Ke5, the Black King has achieved Opposition against his counterpart

King and Pawn endgames

Opposition can be compared to a face-off between two heavy weights in the middle of the street, standing right in front of each other, daring the other to either move ahead accepting a fight or move aside and clear the way. The one who passes asserts domination. On the chess board, Opposition refers to a situation where two kings face each other on the same rank, file, or diagonal, with an odd number of squares between them. The player who made the last move is said to "have the Opposition." By forcing the opponent's king to step aside, the player with the Opposition can control key squares and maneuver more effectively.

Impact of mindset

Throughout this 14-game Match, Gukesh found several moments to put pressure on his opponent. In a way, Gukesh was trying to achieve ‘Opposition’ in the Match, dominating his opponent with his courageous attitude. Ding showed ample resilience but for the final game, where he seemed more nervous, leading to hesitation and thereby critical errors. On the other hand, Gukesh has always been the player who has more confidence in his ability to win than fear of losing. Even in such a high-stakes situation, Gukesh chose to keep the game going in every game, declining clear opportunities to settle for a draw. As my coach remarked, this attitude not only communicates a lack of fear to your opponent but even to yourself!

When you show courage, even the Chess Gods smile upon you.

(Soumya Swaminathan is an International Master and Woman Grandmaster in Chess. She has been World Junior Champion and Commonwealth Gold Medalist)