Chess legend Anatoly Karpov called D Gukesh’s World Championship victory against Ding Liren an ‘accident’. Gukesh defeated Liren in Singapore in December 2024 to become the youngest-ever world chess champion, surpassing Garry Kasparov’s 40-year-old record (he was 22) to win the title at 18 years and six months old.
Karpov, who also clinched the world champion title when he was young. He nearly broke Mikhail Tal’s record at the 1975 World Championship when reigning champion Bobby Fischer forfeited his title in controversial circumstances. As a result, Karpov became the champion at the age of 23 years, 10 months, and 11 days, five months short of Tal’s record.
‘The Indian chess player became champion by accident’: Anatoly Karpov
In an interview with KP.RU, Karpov said, “No, firstly, the Indian chess player [Gukesh] became champion by accident, because he was not supposed to win the match against the Chinese [Ding Liren]”
“There, the Chinese player lost a game he shouldn’t have lost. Then the Chinese player would have remained world champion.”
Karpov credited the Indian chess system for Gukesh’s victory. “If we talk about the situation as a whole, how Gukesh became world champion, then this is the result of a serious state program for chess in India”, he said.
“I don’t know who suggested it to their leaders, but Indian chess players are already straddling international tournaments. The government supported them by buying or renting apartments for them, which they then gave to the players, who traveled from tournament to tournament, staying in these apartments to save money on travel and accommodation. And this produced results; many grandmasters emerged. And at some point, the organizers of chess tournaments in Europe even considered limiting the number of Indians participating in a single tournament.”
During the World Championship showdown in 2024, Liren was the favourite and looked set to clinch victory. But then a huge endgame blunder in the decisive 14th game handed the title to Gukesh.
Gukesh will defend his title this year and face the winner of the upcoming Candidates 2026 tournament. The Indian GM is in poor form and is predicted to lose his title.
The Candidates 2026 will take place in Cyprus between March 28 and April 16. The eight qualified players are 2024 FIDE Circuit winner Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri and Matthias Blubaum (top two 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss finishers), Javokhir Sindarov, Wei Yi and Andre Esipenko (top three 2025 World Cup finishers), R Praggnanandhaa (2025 FIDE Circuit winner), and Hikaru Nakamura (highest average rating between August 2025 and January 2026).
