D Gukesh has recently been the most talked-about person in the Chess industry, but not for good reasons.
Everyone is calling out his form, his way of playing, countering techniques and more.
D Gukesh was recently a part of the Norway Chess Tournament 2026, where he ended his journey in last.
In the coming 6 months, D Gukesh has to defend his title against Uzbekistan’s grandmaster Javokhir Sindarov.
In a recent candid conversation with Hindustan Times, Gukesh has talked about many things, including world chess championship preparations, his form slump, expectations and more.
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D Gukesh On Hardest Part of Being the World Champion
When asked what the hardest part of being a world champion is, Gukesh said, “Managing expectations. As much as you try to switch off from the outside world, you’re still aware that there is this elephant in the room – of expectations from you and also you expect something from yourself. In general, I’m an ambitious player and I keep going for wins. Considering these things, it has been pretty hard but okay, it’s a challenge. I either break from it or grow through it. Right now, it is not looking great.. Let’s see.. “
Gukesh has always been an aggressive player. He grew up playing open tournaments where only winning games was the way to move forward, and that zeal only made him the World champion, but right now, this is going against him.
About this, he said, “Since a young age, I’ve been playing a lot of opens and to win opens you need to be tricky, you need to start winning a lot of games. It’s just the way I was brought up. It’s who I am. Sometimes it’s okay, but in chess you have to be objective. You need to give in to the demands of the position and sometimes, when you want the result too much, it gets in the way of your objectivity and that’s what’s been happening. I lost so many games which I should have just played and saved. So yeah, it’s something related to self-control and managing expectations. All these are very minor things, but that’s what makes the difference at the top, because everybody plays at a very high level. There’s no excuse for not being objective. It’s the job of a professional to do that and I’ve not been doing so; there’s no excuse for that. It’s just that I need to manage myself better.
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Most Players Are Lucky Not to become world champions
Talking about the mental work he is putting into his game, Gukesh said something really deep.
He said, “For anybody, becoming a world champion is such a huge drive that most people are lucky not to achieve it. They constantly have something to push themselves. After that happens, you need to find something else that drives you.”
He achieved that at 18. Two years on, he is still searching for something that can replace it.
“There were obviously some parts in 2025 when there were some motivation issues,” he admitted. “If you really love the sport, if you’re able to connect back to why you started playing the sport, I feel external results can never be a reliable source of motivation for a very long time. Something that drives you from within, that’s what I’ve been trying to connect with.”
When asked whether he had ever allowed himself to think the way that ‘It’s fine, I’m still a teenager’, he said, I think whenever you tell something like that, you’re tricking yourself because you know that this means a lot. If you tell yourself, ‘okay, it’s fine’ you’re not tricking yourself anymore. The truth is I care. I do get affected, but I need to be performing despite of all that. I’m not using age as an excuse. It’s normal. But I want to do something more to strive for greatness. I can understand these problems better. But it doesn’t mean it’s fine.”
So, the World Championship match is still six months away. Gukesh is not the dominant favourite on current form. But he is being honest about exactly where he is, doing the work, and trying to pull out the best from inside him.
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Also Read: What Viswanathan Anand Told Gukesh Ahead Of His World Title Defence
