Gukesh tries to be objective, which is not very usual for Indian chess players: Grzegorz Gajewski

Grzegorz Gajewski commands respect as a coach. Talk to him for a few minutes, you will learn why — if you don’t want to go by his stellar record alone. He comes across as a highly intelligent, insightful coach who knows what it takes to produce a World champion. He has, in fact, done just that. His ward D. Gukesh, at 18, became the youngest World chess champion recently. The Hindu caught up with the Polish Grandmaster, who has also worked with Gukesh’s mentor Viswanathan Anand, for a lengthy interview at Sentosa, the small island off the southern coast of mainland Singapore that hosted the World Championship. Excerpts:

Which factors, do you think, have helped Gukesh win the title?

He was not at his best here chess-wise, and he has been facing so many difficulties. In the end, he was able to find a way to overcome them. Another thing is his incredible will to beat the opponent. For three weeks, people were scratching their heads thinking what is he doing, why is he pushing every position for a win? The good one, the bad one — in every position he just keeps playing. And then in the final game, he exhausted Ding and made him miss a simple resource. Gukesh just got rewarded for his incredible ambition.

Are you surprised by the speed with which Gukesh stormed to the World title?

I remember the first time we had a serious discussion was last year during the Stavanger Norway Chess, our first tournament together. He told me he would like to be in the top 10 by the end of the year. Back then I had started reading a lot of sports psychology. I got really into that because I realised that these things actually matter. So I kept convincing him not to think about those things. Just focus on the process. The result is only the outcome. I was telling him to take this pressure off because he is so ambitious. He was in the top 10 in two months.

When Gukesh got off to a bad start here, losing the first game, that too with white pieces, were you concerned?

Losing the first game is not easy, but it is not the end of the world. In a sense, it is good to get this warning sign right away. So many people were saying Ding is not the player he used to be, you are going to crush him. And you have to fight those thoughts. Starting with a loss makes it easier. Because you quickly realise he may be weaker, he may be out of form; I don’t know yet, but I know for sure he is dangerous, he can beat me in any situation. So I need to stay alert.

As a coach, what struck you most about Gukesh?

His incredible calculation, and his deep knowledge. He tries to be objective, which is not very usual for Indian chess players, who quite often tend to be optimistic. Especially aggressive players tend to be optimistic. He is a very interesting mix stylistically, because he is a very strong calculator, he is very aggressive, but at the same time he is cautious.

Anish Giri told me a couple of months ago that Gukesh had added another layer to his game now, he can shut the position down if he wants to.

It is not his natural instinct to play the positional style. But I have been trying to convince him, and I think I have partially managed to convince him. He can actually mimic the style of a positional player. And we have witnessed this at the Olympiad, when he was basically grinding the win against Wei Yi of China. I think it is the first time in his life where he actually won a game against a top player in such a way that you were just grinding for a couple of hours looking for chances. He will never be a player like Magnus Carlsen in the sense of being an intuitive kind of a player.

He likes to calculate and he likes to go deep into position. He doesn’t like to make moves just purely based on intuition. He will never play in the Magnus style, but he can very well mimic it.

We saw a bit of that here as well. He repeatedly rejected Ding’s virtual offers of a draw… He went on playing even for the minutest advantage.

That was the overall strategy, to exhaust the opponent. So people must have been thinking — what was he doing, like refusing draws in slightly worse positions? But in the end it paid off.

To refuse draws is like a definition of Gukesh. So this is kind of normal, but also here after the Game 3, which he won, we realised that just a long game with pressure and no clear solution could be the way to beat Ding. There was a lot of tension and there were not only variations that you had to calculate, but also positions you had to evaluate. And after each move there would be another task and there would be no clear solution to this task. And that was difficult for Ding.

Gukesh had a clear edge in the opening.

We did not really prepare for everything. We were not that thorough, especially compared to the old standards. But our approach has not changed in this regard. It was always to surprise as early as possible. And limit your ambitions in terms of what you are going to get after the opening, just to get a playable position.

Were you glad that you could finish it off in the classical games? Generally it was thought that Ding might have the edge in the tiebreaker.

In Ding’s favour was the experience, having already played [at the last World Championship against Ian Nepomniachtchi]. But Gukesh has played so many blitz training games this year. Hundreds literally. We took this part of the game very seriously.

Ding had gone on record about having to get treated for mental health issues and he has been in poor form, coming into the match.

I kept telling Gukesh that the man became the World champion. It was not a coincidence. So he might have a difficult period, but he will bring his very best for the match. And he will fight like crazy. That is exactly what happened. So in this regard, I’m very happy that he started with a loss. Because if you start with a loss, you quickly wake up from this dream.

It was a very long journey for Gukesh. Spoiling the winning positions in the middle of the match was a very difficult period for him. After Game 10, he finally made his peace with the fact that his opponent is a World champion and he also wants to win. The last four games he played with the perfect mindset. Less pressure, because you don’t feel like you need to win. He was just able to play his best chess. He lost Game 12 very badly, but he came back to the room and he said, ‘I feel fine’.

Gukesh must be one of the best when it comes to calculation. Who is the best?

Vishy [Anand]. In terms of talent for calculation, perhaps no one in the history of the game could match him. But at the same time, he was so fast that sometimes it became his weakness. Gukesh somewhat resembles a young Fabiano Caruana.

How big a role has WestBridge Anand Chess Academy played in Gukesh becoming the World champion?

An incredible role. The support from Sandeep Singhal [co-founder of WestBridge Capital, sponsor of Gukesh] and Vishy Anand was great. Vishy was personally involved with starting the academy, even personally involved with some of the lessons. He actually cared for all these students, not just Gukesh. It is incredibly nice of a man with such a brilliant career.