Gukesh Dommaraju’s profile has gone more than just a few notches up since his maiden World Chess Championship title, where he beat China’s Ding Liren in the final in Singapore last December.

The 18-year-old, though, believes he still has a good distance to cover before being on par with world No.1 Magnus Carlsen.

“I’m very honoured to have the World Championship title, but there’s still a long way to go before I can compare myself with Magnus or anything like that. So, it’s a positive thing that I have the World Championship title, but there is also someone like Magnus to look up to and work, set as a benchmark and work towards that,” Gukesh said at theTrailblazers Conclave at a city hotel on Friday.

“Other than that, I could improve in the other formats... rapid and blitz. Freestyle has also come up now. So, a lot of exciting things… When you have nothing to work towards, you get bored. So, I have a lot to look forward to, a lot to improve on.

“Also in classical, I am world No. 3 now, I think. So, it’s still a long way to go.”

Gukesh had beaten Carlsen in the AimChess Prelims in 2022. The duo are set to clash again in the second leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025, to be held in Paris next month.

Gukesh acknowledged that these are “exciting” times for Indian chess, especially with the successes both the men’s and women’s teams achieved at the Chess Olympiad last September.

“I don’t think there is any other country where there are so many players at the top and several others coming up. It’sreally amazing to see how we are pushing each other and growing together, while we have a very healthy rivalry amongst ourselves.

“All of us are also hungry and not stopping to work hard at any point. We’ll be constantly growing, so yeah, it’s really exciting for Indian chess and I’m really happy to be a partof this amazing group,” Gukesh said.