Indian prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju, 18, wins world chess championship

Chess’ new world champion is the youngest in the competition’s history.

Indian prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju, 18, defeated China’s Ding Liren in the final round of a best-of-14 competition.

The win caps a remarkable rise by Gukesh, who became a grandmaster at 12 and is the first Indian to win since 2007.

The teen was a “locked vault of emotions” during the championship, The Indian Express wrote, spending the weeks-long competition in Singapore “unlike most people from his generation… with bare minimum social media and internet usage.”

Gukesh’s seemingly singular focus belies the fraught backdrop to this year’s competition: Russian players were banned, while high-profile Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen said he was too bored to compete.