Garry Kasparov, one of the greatest chess players, believes that the “era of the classical world champions ended” when Magnus Carlsen decided to walk away from the world championship cycle in 2023.

Kasparov made these comments about Dommaraju Gukesh’s world championship title during the live broadcast of the fifth round of the Sinquefield Cup on Saturday.

Since Carlsen abdicated his throne, China’s Ding Liren and India’s Gukesh have become the 17th and 18th world champions.

The Indian teenager made history as the youngest world champion in the sport at the age of 18 when he defeated Ding.

“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,” Kasparov said.

“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,” Kasparov remarked.

“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,” Kasparov said.

As Kasparov’s comments aired on the live broadcast, Susan Polgar came out in support of Gukesh.

“Gukesh is a deserving World Classical Champion, period!... If we, as a chess community, delegitimize 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,” Polgar posted.