Singapore’s youngest and newest grandmaster Siddharth Jagadeesh on Thursday recalled the time when D. Gukesh offered him a “grace draw” in the Under-9 Asian Championships.
“So first place in the tournament guarantees the title of Candidate Master. And a draw gave him first place. [Even though] he had a better, winning position, he simply offered me a draw and I agreed to it. But I am sure he could win if he wanted to,” he said after the Chennai Open International Grandmasters chess tournament held here.
Siddharth made sure to watch the last World Championship match live as much as possible, even though he was playing at the Singapore International Open at the time. This was because he thought the match was “more interesting” because it involved Gukesh, whom he had known “for a long time”.
“So my game ended around 7pm (Singapore time). And the game lasted maybe 2-3 hours. And then I went and looked.”
“I think if you’re there you can understand the complexity of the game. Because you are completely absorbed in the atmosphere. But if you’re watching at home, you’re doing other things on the side. You don’t understand what they’re thinking. You just see the engine rating and think it’s very simple,” he added.
In his statement after watching the World Championship match, he said: “Many new ideas in some debuts. When two players of their caliber play, there’s always going to be something very enlightening.
Talking about the impact that hosting the world championship match will certainly have on chess in Singapore, he said: “We don’t have much of a chess culture in Singapore. We only have five grandmasters. And the next youngest is 21 years old.
“So by having this (match) in Singapore where so many kids were watching, I think it will definitely create a chess boom.”
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As an 18-year-old, he talked about Gukesh’s inspiring journey.
“He was born just a few months before me. It’s very inspiring to see how much he has achieved in this time. I think he’s definitely a very hard worker.”
“I think Gukesh is very mentally strong. Even in the candidates, when he qualified for the World Cup, he lost a painful match but came back stronger. Here (world championship match) he lost the first match and was able to come back in the third match. He later lost the match but managed to win the last match again,” he said.
He highlighted a feature that distinguishes the current generation of successful young Indian chess players. “I think they are very hard-working and very committed to the game. For many of them, chess is the only thing they do. They devote their entire lives to chess, which is not so common in Singapore or Europe.
Siddharth said his goal now is to crack the top 100 (currently 508th) in the world rankings and reach around 2630 or 2640 (currently Elo – 2516) in the next 2-3 years.
