D Gukesh will play his first tournament as the World Chess Champion in the Tata Steel Masters at Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands starting today.

The World No. 5 Indian has been super busy since triumphing over China's Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship in Singapore in mid-December. Since then, the 18-year-old has attended several celebratory events, acted in a hilarious advertisement featuring Viswanathan Anand, and received India's highest sporting honour, the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award.

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Gukesh had to fly out of the country just hours after receiving the award from the President of India to avoid missing his opening round at the Tata Steel Masters. His opponent, former World No. 3, Anish Giri, seems to understand the circumstances and posted: "Facing Gukesh in the first round, after his long trip from India on Saturday. Expecting to play the best version of him."

Four other Indians, Arjun Erigaisi, Pentala Harikrishna, R Praggnanandhaa, and Leon Luke Mendonca, compete in the Masters event. Fabiano Caruana, Giri, Yi Wei, Nordirbek Abdusattorov, Max Warmerdam, Jorden Van Foreest, Vladimir Fedoseev, Alexey Sarana and Vincent Keymer are the other top competitors. Caruana, Foreest and Giri are former champions, while Wei is the reigning champion. World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen is not participating.

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The Masters event is a fourteen-player, single round-robin event with a player taking on every other competitor once. The games are played in classical format, with a time control of 100 minutes for the first 40 minutes.

Last year, when he had not yet become the World Champion, Gukesh finished tied-first in the league phase before losing to Giri in the tie-breakers.

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