About six months back, when Paddy Upton was approached to coach an Indian athlete for his first appearance at a World Championship, the South African mind guru was not sure what to make of the offer. In the past, Upton helped the Indian cricket team claim the 2011 World Cup and the Indian men’s hockey team seal a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics.
But this offer was different: it was a chance to help D Gukesh become the youngest-ever world chess champion at the age of 18. Paddy Upton has worked with athletes from 19 different sports, but rarely with someone this young, that too a chess player, on a one-on-one basis – which explains his initial hesitation.
“I wasn’t sure about working with him initially because I tend to not work with people who are too young. They haven’t really matured or evolved. But Gukesh has just been an absolute blessing and a gift to work with. He is super-intelligent. We’re able to have amazingly detailed and deeply complex conversations,” Paddy Upton tells The Indian Express.
The South African says that over the last half a year, his work with the Chennai-based Grandmaster has been incredibly rewarding, so much so that their one-hour conversational sessions often stretch into additional half hours. He throws a string of adjectives to describe these conversations, calling them in-depth, complex, interesting yet challenging.
“I’ve just been amazed at his self-awareness and maturity. Not just his game, but his awareness about himself, his processes and his mind. He asks great questions, and is hungry to learn,” gushes Paddy Upton.
With Gukesh, Paddy Upton’s role has been slightly different to the previous ones he had with high-profile Indian teams. Paddy Upton had to emphasise with cricketers and hockey players that they shouldn’t over-respect their opponents. But with Gukesh, whose chances of victory against reigning champion China’s Ding Liren have been talked up by top Grandmasters including Magnus Carlsen, the mental conditioning coach has to help the Chennai boy keep a level head and his feet on the ground as he approaches the showdown next month.
File image of World Chess Champi0onship contender Gukesh at the Tat Steel India Chess Tournament in Kolkata in 2023. (Express Photo by Partha Paul)
“We have had conversations around the concept of underestimating versus over-respecting your opponent. Gukesh is very well aware of some of the narratives that are out there around Ding’s form. And he’s seen it for himself. But to what degree do we overemphasise or over-respect the opponent versus under-respect them,” says Paddy Upton, who adds that he and Gukesh’s team have been helping the teenager train to face off against an “on-form Ding, who has found his mojo again”.
“Gukesh is preparing to meet the best version of Ding that has ever been around,” quips Paddy Upton.
How working with Gukesh is different from working with top cricketers
Paddy Upton drops names of the who’s who of Indian cricket as he tries to contrast the experience of working with the teenager with the biggest names in Indian sport.
“I’ve worked with very accomplished individuals who certainly don’t overrate themselves. Like Rahul Dravid, he doesn’t believe he’s made it. Doesn’t believe he’s the greatest. Always hungry to learn, walks around with real humility. But I’ve also worked with very young players who’ve come into an Indian national cricket team for the first time as 20-year-olds and they think they’ve made it. Gukesh is someone who is quiet, soft spoken and humble. But he has a deep confidence in his ability naturally — certainly no overconfidence.”
Paddy Upton says his work with Gukesh involves finding a “sweet spot of having the right justifiable level of confidence”: the level which doesn’t go too high but also doesn’t lead him to underestimate himself.
“One thing about Gukesh is that he’s one of those who brings out his best in the really big moments. Someone like Virat Kohli in the (T20) World Cup earlier this year. Or Gautam Gambhir and Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the 2011 World Cup. Most players are overwhelmed by the really big occasion. But there’s only a few who I would call big-match temperament players. Gukesh is someone who has shown all the signs of being that. The bigger the match, the better chess he’s most likely to play. I think this World Championship is going to bring the best out of him,” Paddy Upton predicts.
He jokes that it took him some time to coax Gukesh to stop calling him ‘sir’ and start addressing him as ‘Paddy’. But in terms of candour, Gukesh pulls no punches.
“He has this confidence to speak really openly, to ask open questions, to connect with me as a peer. Sometimes, I find in an Indian context that there is too much respect given to a senior and people will just accept whatever someone older will say on face value. They won’t challenge or question it. When there is that acceptance of everything a senior says, no learning can happen. But if Gukesh disagrees or sees something differently, he’s comfortable to talk about that,” Paddy Upton adds.
