2015–2019

Gukesh won the Under-9 section of the Asian School Chess Championships in 2015,^[8] and the World Youth Chess Championships in 2018 in the Under 12 category.^[9] He also won five gold medals at the 2018 Asian Youth Chess Championships, in the U-12 individual rapid and blitz, U-12 team rapid and blitz, and the U-12 individual classical formats.^[10] He completed the requirements for the title of International Master in March 2017 at the 34th Cappelle-la-Grande Open.^[11]

On 15 January 2019, at the age of 12 years, 7 months, and 17 days, Gukesh became the then second-youngest grandmaster in history,^[12] only surpassed by Sergey Karjakin with 17 days.^[13] Since then the record was beaten by Abhimanyu Mishra, making Gukesh the third youngest.^[14]

2021

In June 2021, he won the Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour, Gelfand Challenge, scoring 14 out of 19 points.^[15]

2022

In August 2022, he began the 44th Chess Olympiad with a perfect score of 8/8, helping India-2 defeat the No. 1 ranked U.S. in the 8th match. He finished with a score of 9 out 11, a 2867 Elo performance, earning the gold medal on the 1st board.

In September 2022, Gukesh reached a rating of over 2700 for the first time, with a rating of 2726.^[16] This made him the third youngest player to pass 2700, after Wei Yi and Alireza Firouzja.^[17]

In October 2022, Gukesh became the youngest player to beat Magnus Carlsen since the latter became World Champion, in the Aimchess Rapid tournament.^[18]

2023

In February 2023, Gukesh participated in the first edition of the WR Masters tournament in Düsseldorf, where he finished on 5½/9, tying for first place with Levon Aronian and Ian Nepomniachtchi. He came second to Aronian in the tiebreaks.

In the August 2023 rating list, Gukesh became the youngest player ever to reach a rating of 2750.^[19]

Gukesh participated in the Chess World Cup 2023. He reached the quarter-finals before being defeated by Magnus Carlsen.^[20]

In the September 2023 rating list, Gukesh officially surpassed Viswanathan Anand as the top-ranked Indian player, marking the first time in 37 years that Anand was not the top-ranked Indian player.^[21][22]

In December 2023, with the end of the FIDE Circuit, Gukesh qualified for the 2024 Candidates Tournament.^[23] Gukesh had placed second in the Circuit, but Fabiano Caruana, the winner, had already qualified through the World Cup.^[24] He became the third youngest player to play in a Candidates tournament, behind Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlsen.^[25][26]

2024: Candidates winner

In January 2024, Gukesh participated in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2024. He scored 8.5 points from 13 games (6 wins, 5 draws and 2 losses) to finish in a 4-way tie for 1st place. In Round 12, he had a winning position against R Praggnanandhaa, but blundered into a threefold repetition. In tiebreaks he defeated Anish Giri in semifinals but lost to Wei Yi in the finals.^[27]

In April, Gukesh participated in the 2024 Candidates Tournament. ^[28] Gukesh won games against fellow countrymen Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi playing as black, Alireza Firouzja playing as white, and Nijat Abasov playing as both black and white.^[29] His only loss was his game with black against Firouzja. This gave him 5 wins, 1 loss and 8 draws, for a score of 9/14, winning the tournament, and qualifying for the 2024 World Championship match against Ding Liren. He is the youngest ever winner of the Candidates,^[30] and will be the youngest player to play in a World Chess Championship match. ^[3]