India’s D Gukesh during his FIDE World Championship 2024 match against Ding Liren of China, in Singapore, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (FIDE/Eng Chin An via PTI Photo)
For a boy who says he idolises Mahendra Singh Dhoni, there is a certain hint of MSD about the way Gukesh does things on the chessboard.
Falling to defeat in the first game of the World Chess Championship with white pieces would have been enough to rattle anybody’s confidence. More so if you’re an 18-year-old stepping into the cauldron of pressure for the first time. That opening game defeat to Ding Liren would have also reminded Gukesh of a damning stat: he had never beaten the reigning world champion in a classical game and had lost with black pieces every single time he had faced the Chinese GM.
But Gukesh did not get so far by getting rattled by defeats. Just look at the Candidates tournament in Toronto this year where the 17-year-old had cut down an experienced field to earn his shot at the title. He had been winning the game against Alireza Firouzja, when he got low on time and eventually lost. For a brief second, his mask of nonchalance slipped. But later, he called that defeat as a moment that he drew confidence from.
Mind guru Paddy Upton — who has worked with some of the greatest Indian athletes across multiple sports, be it the Indian cricket team legends like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid or Indian hockey stalwarts like PR Sreejesh — gushed about Gukesh’s mental toughness and big match temperament.
“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,” Upton had told The Indian Express before the World Chess Championship.
Upton had gone on to predict: “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.”
Upton’s predictions are already starting to become reality. Gukesh remained unflappable after the opening defeat and the game 2 draw versus Ding Liren, where his opponent tried to spring surprises on him knowing he would be nervous.
“We already knew what could happen. Losing is part of the game. It was not a shock,” Gukesh had said after the second game where he even managed to break into a smile a few times. A day later, after he had a win on the board, he added: “The last two days I was happy with my play, but today was even better. I feel good at the board and today I just managed to outplay my opponent with chess which is always very nice.”
Just in case he starts to get carried away with the win, he’s reminded of the stinging criticism by former world champion Magnus Carlsen who had said after his game 1 defeat: “It’s hard to understate how bad this was from Gukesh. Not a single good decision.”
Gukesh takes the stinging rebuke in his stride and just shrugs. “After some point, all my moves were pretty bad,” he admitted. “But it was also understandable. It’s my first world championship. It’s a new setting for me. Even Magnus in his first world championship, he was not at his best at the start. It’s a very normal reaction. I was okay with that.”
It takes more than a defeat or criticism from a legend to rattle this 18-year-old.
