On the rest day following game 9 of the World Chess Championship, Gukesh and Grzegorz Gajewski went for a walk on the beach in Singapore. There the Polish trainer and Indian teenager spotted a few people trying bungee jumping. That was when Gajewski had a Eureka moment.
“He said to me, ‘If you win the world championship, I’m going to do bungee jumping.’ I’m personally quite scared of heights. So I don’t know why I said, ‘I’’ll also join you.’” chuckled Gukesh at the press conference after becoming the world champion.
Now that the pact has been made, it must be honoured. Come Saturday, both Gukesh and Gajewski will take turns to taunt gravity. As Gukesh said: “I’m looking forward to jumping off a bridge.”
Gajewski has been the trustworthy sherpa to Gukesh as the teenager scaled the highest peak of chess — becoming a world champion. It’s a partnership that came about in January 2023 when the duo was brought together by Viswanathan Anand, who himself relied on Gajewski as a second for multiple world championship battles.
At big-ticket events like the World Championship, a player has an entire team of seconds. Some are invited to training camps for very specific roles, like playing training games. Others help build a repertoire of opening ideas, which the players can play on the board in games. Most of Gukesh’s team has been together since Gukesh was preparing for the Candidates tournament in Toronto.
At the world championship, Gukesh was easily the better-prepared combatant on the chess board. Almost in every game, he managed to confound Ding Liren in the opening phase — where the influence of seconds is the largest — forcing the now-former world champion to burn up time on the clock thinking about a response.
Once he was the world champion, Gukesh revealed the names of his seconds. Besides Gajewski and mind guru Paddy Upton, there were five more grandmasters who had helped Gukesh: Pentala Harikrishna, Radosław Wojtaszek (Poland), Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland), Jan Klimkowski (Poland) and Vincent Keymer (Germany). Anand was the mentor, always at hand for life advice should Gukesh need it.
Gajewski broke down how the backroom team had helped Gukesh plot his chess coup.
The opening ideas for Gukesh’s games came from four members: Harikrishna, Radek (Radosław Wojtaszek), Keymer and Gajewski. Harikrishna, Radek and Gajewski were with the team since before the Candidates. Back then, Klimkowski was also a member of the team helping the team with analytical work. Keymer was the last one to join.
“With Vincent, we didn’t know what he would actually bring to the team. So we were kind of taking some kind of a risk. But it paid off because he brought a lot of interesting ideas,” Gajewski told The Indian Express.
Preparing for time trouble
Jan-Krzysztof Duda — one of the world’s best blitz players — was brought on board to play a “couple of hundred training games” against Gukesh. And to play fast formats of games, so Gukesh could be prepared for thinking quickly in time trouble situations. In essence, Duda and Gukesh have been secretly playing these training games online against each other since April.
“He’s the player in the team! With a capital P. He’s not like most of us that are sitting there with engines. He’s like, wake him up in the middle of the night, give him a position, he’ll just play. And he can play for hours.
“This allowed Gukesh to get some experience in the lines that he was supposed to be playing. But also to improve his skills of playing on very low time, which could be useful during time trouble. We wanted to make sure that when it comes to time troubles, Gukesh will not collapse. Although we did mostly focus on the openings, we did not forget about the other things and other areas of the game,” said Gajewski.
Between the Candidates in April and the World Championship, Team Gukesh had four training camps in Poland and India.
The Polish influence in the team is obviously courtesy Gajewski, who has assumed the role that Peter Heine Nielsen played for Magnus Carlsen — the “middle guy connecting the whole team”.
If you thought being a challenger for the world champion’s throne was tough, spare a thought for seconds.
“It basically means for three weeks, you don’t get to sleep for more than six hours. Even if technically you can sleep for over six hours (on certain days), you will not sleep for that long. There’s so much pressure, so much work to do. You have to stay alert,” shrugged Gajewski.
The complexities of working for the toughest test in the sport meant that the team needed to work around the clock. That’s why the team chose Malaga in Spain as the base for the rest of the team, while Gajewski joined Gukesh in Singapore.
“When they went to sleep (in Spain), we woke up (in Singapore),” he pointed out.
After all that grind, Gajewski can finally sleep for more than six hours now. But it’s the thought of jumping off a bridge on Saturday that’s giving him a sleepless night.
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