Magnus Carlsen banging the desk. That picture alone tells you all the things about what Gukesh Dommaraju means to the world of chess proper now. At Norway Chess in June 2025, the reigning World Champion, a 19-year-old from Chennai, sat throughout from the best participant the sport has ever seen and dismantled him in classical format. Carlsen, a person who has made a profession out of psychological composure, was so rattled he slapped the desk earlier than accumulating himself and patting Gukesh on the again. That second, quiet and electrical abruptly, was the clearest sign but that the throne had genuinely modified palms, and that its new occupant had no intention of warming it for anybody else.
Titan was paying consideration. The Indian watchmaker’s “Titan of the 12 months” platform exists exactly to freeze moments like this in metallic and mineral, and for 2026 they’d an apparent, irresistible selection. The result’s the Grandmaster X Gukesh Dommaraju Particular Version, a 500-piece restricted run that takes the geometry, hierarchy, and quiet depth of chess and presses it into probably the most thoughtfully designed Indian watches in latest reminiscence.
Designer: Titan
The centerpiece of the watch, fairly actually, is the dial. Titan’s design group went properly past printing a chessboard sample on a disc and calling it a day. The dial is a handmade stone marquetry composition in tiger eye and black agate, two minerals with very totally different personalities that collectively produce the nice and cozy amber-and-dark-grid texture of an actual wood chess board. Nearer inspection rewards persistence, and the design group clearly understood {that a} chess participant’s watch ought to reveal itself the identical means an excellent transfer does: slowly, intentionally, with rising appreciation.
The hour indices comply with the motion logic of chess items. The Queen sits at 12, the Rook at 9, the Bishop at 3, and the King at 6, whereas the remaining markers take the form of pawns. The pink seconds hand carries a Knight counterpoise, a nod to Gukesh’s favourite piece on the board. Each look on the time turns into a delicate re-engagement with the sport. Then the lights exit, and the watch transforms completely. The lume utility on this dial is genuinely dramatic. The chess piece indices, rendered as sculpted rose-gold markers with lume fills, blaze a vivid inexperienced in opposition to the darkish textured chapter ring. The palms, with their open-worked cutouts, carry the identical inexperienced cost.
The case is 316L stainless-steel with a rose-gold end, heat and modern with out being flashy, very like the person it honors. A sapphire crystal sits over the dial, and the entire thing rides on a calf leather-based strap with a butterfly clasp. Flip it over and the caseback provides you the true collector’s second: a rotor embossed with the Grandmaster Knight motif, personally signed by Gukesh, alongside the inscription marking his achievement because the youngest World Chess Champion at 18.
Inside, Titan’s in-house calibre 7A20 automated motion does the work, 22 jewels, 40-hour energy reserve, and completely constructed with out outsourcing the mechanical coronary heart of the watch. That’s a degree of satisfaction for Titan, and rightly so.
The watch ships in specifically designed packaging with a private notice from Gukesh, and it’s priced at Rs. 69,995 (roughly $840). With solely 500 items in existence, each numbered, it is a watch that exists on the intersection of cultural second and materials craft. Whether or not you’re a chess obsessive, a collector of Indian design milestones, or somebody who appreciates a dial that rewards lengthy, cautious consideration, the Grandmaster X Gukesh is already taking part in its personal quiet, masterful recreation.
