Free Republic

Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju capped a stunning ascent to the pinnacle of chess by dethroning China’s Ding Liren to become the youngest ever world champion on Thursday in Singapore. The 18-year-old from Chennai dramatically snatched the decisive victory from a dead-drawn position in the final contest of their best-of-14-games showdown when Ding made one of the worst blunders in the 138-year history of world championship matchplay. The 32-year-old defending champion resigned moments later after a game that lasted 58 moves and just over four hours, sealing Gukesh’s 7½-6½ win in the three-week match and rendering moot the widely expected prospect...

After an accident, former World Champion Anatoly Karpov was rushed to the hospital with multiple head injuries in which he was placed in an induced coma. Karpov was put on a ventilator now, and has been diagnosed with cerebral edema, fractures of the right parietal and right temporal bones, multiple head hematomas, and traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage. We will update this report as the news trickles in.