Published on: Aug 23, 2025 09:17 am IST
Garry Kasparov downplayed the importance of D Gukesh’s World Championship victory vs Ding Liren.
Since becoming the youngest-ever World Champion in history, D Gukesh has been on the receiving end of criticism from some veterans like Magnus Carlsen. The Norwegian GM criticised the quality of the World Championship match against Ding Liren, which took place in December last year.
Now, even legendary chess player Garry Kasparov has joined the bandwagon, and compared Gukesh’s title to his and Carlsen’s in a bold remark.
“Gukesh won fair and square, but you can hardly call him the strongest player in the world. I don’t want to sound offensive, but I think Magnus ended the era of classical world champions. Gukesh’s world championship title is very different. It’s still clear that Magnus is the strongest, and Gukesh is yet to prove his superiority over others. Even players of his age category. The round 1 game against Praggnanandhaa at the Sinquefield Cup was very unimpressive. The rules are the rules and the games are the games,” said Kasparov.
He also apologised for his words, but explained the meaning behind them. “I’m sure there will be more excitement in the Candidates and the next world championship match. But I apologise. I have to apologise time and again. This is not exactly the title that I had or Karpov had or Fischer had or Magnus had,” he said.
Meanwhile, another legendary player, Susan Polgar, rushed to Gukesh’s defence after Kasparov’s criticism. Taking to X, she wrote, “Gukesh is a deserving World Classical Champion, period! He went through the FIDE Candidates as an 18-year-old, the youngest in the tournament, and came out ahead of big stars like Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alireza Firouzja, and Pragg, etc. It was not his fault that Magnus Carlsen walked away from his title. If we, as a chess community, delegitimise his title because he did not beat Carlsen, then we need to do the same for World Champions after Bobby Fischer, since he also walked away from his title! We can not have different standards for players we like or dislike.”
