Very early in his career, world champion Gukesh has experienced things that not too many chess players will do across the full stretch of a career. He was a world champion by the age of 18, experienced a wretched run of form in the 20 months since then, and now, aged 20, is being told by tongue-in-cheek trolls on social media to retire.

In an Instagram Story that Gukesh shared recently, he showed a screenshot of someone telling him that it was time to retire, to which Gukesh coolly replied: “Thanks, bro.” When the troll asked him if he would want to play a game of chess against him, Gukesh added: “Sorry I’m retired bro.”

The exchange even had five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand laughing.

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“I think what Gukesh did is probably one of the better methods to deal with it (trolling). With humour,” Anand said in an interview with before repeating Gukesh’s catchphrase — ‘Sure, bro’ — and chuckling away.

(LEFT) A screengrab that Gukesh shared showing his conversation with someone trying to troll him; (RIGHT) Gukesh at the recent Chennai Grand Masters tournament. (Photos: Screengrab via Gukesh/Instagram; Express Photo)

When Anand was asked if he had ever experienced similar comments from fans over the course of his career, he replied: “In a nutshell, I wasn’t on Facebook during many of my World Championship matches. If anybody remembers, Facebook was the social platform when I was playing. Now, I think it’s already the grandparents’ platform or something. Basically, I didn’t have to deal with such an intimacy (with fans). It’s probably still a choice, but I think it’s much more pervasive. It’s not enough for you to block yourself out. You have to block out all the people who are walking around with cameras around you. They are recording (you all the time), they may make a chance remark, do a chance thing.”

Anand said that it’s much harder to stay in a bubble now than back then.

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“It’s a new world and I did not have to face the same thing. I don’t even know if those methods I used to cut myself off from the noise are as valid today. The methods would have to be updated heavily,” Anand added.