The Chess World Championship is designed to be the toughest test possible in the sport. The road to being world champion is a long and winding one, and that is just phase one – qualifying for the Candidates tournament. Winning it, and then sitting through a gruelling 14-game affair (potentially more if tie-breaks are necessary) require a certain preparation that only the best in the sport are cut out for.
Five-time world Viswanathan Anand was certainly cut out for it. He also played multiple tournament formats on his way to winning each of his world titles, which proved his credentials against some of the best players in the world. As someone who has seen D Gukesh’s development from close quarters, Anand is certain that the youngster has all the tools it takes to be world champion.
“The thing of a long test of fire is that it’s supposed to, well, test you in many, many ways,” Anand told ESPN.
“Do you have the maturity? Do you have the will to win? Do you have the ability to bounce back? So, a lot of qualities in you are tested. It’s about maturing as much as possible as a chess player. And, you might still not become world champion, but then you get a very, very good shot at it,” he added.
Chess skill
First and foremost, to even be in with a sniff of playing at the world championship match, a player’s chess ability must be among the best in the world. However, at this level of the sport, there isn’t much differentiating players just in terms of their raw technical ability. So, how can one gain an edge when the two players’ abilities are so similar to each other?
Like any World Cup final in any sport around the world, it is the small things that will decide this one too. At the 2022 FIFA World Cup for example, there was precious little to choose between France and Argentina in the game, apart from Emiliano Martinez providing Argentina the edge in a shootout. It’s those fine margins that will come into play here too, and potentially even the players’ abilities to play in faster time controls should tie-breaks be required.
“Strategy becomes important,” Anand said. “If you’re able to take the right risk at the right time, you know, catch your opponent with something unexpected, then you can turn the match in your favor. But of course, doing that will only involve risks, so it can backfire.”
Srinath Narayanan, the captain of the Indian team which won the Open gold medal at the Olympiad earlier this year, told ESPN that Gukesh’s preparations are likely to be focused on catching Ding off guard.
For example, Anand completely changed his preferred opening from the queen’s pawn to the king’s pawn prior to the 2008 world championship match against Vladimir Kramnik, just to throw his opponent’s preparations off. And then, after 10 games, he went back to his favoured queen’s pawn opening, needing just a draw to retain his world title.
Srinath said that the trick to gaining an advantage in the game these days lies in moving away from the preferred lines suggested by engines and computers and breaking the norm.
The impact of form and sustaining it
It is possible that some of these strategies would’ve been tested out by Gukesh, particularly at the European club championship in October, where he didn’t have the best run of results. However, five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen was clearly in favour of playing competitive tournaments in the build-up to the world championship, rather than just being bubbled in your preparatory routines.
“I think a lot of qualities are important when you play. You can’t get by without tremendous amounts of practice, both practising and playing,” Carlsen told PTI last week, on the sidelines of the Tata Steel tournament in Kolkata.
“Yeah, certainly when you’re playing, all the preparation you can do is not going to do you any good unless you’re disciplined while playing as well. Which one is more important? I think probably an overall game experience by practising and playing,” Carlsen added.
Clearly at the moment Gukesh is the player in better form, but Anand said the fickle nature of form means that it can flip any moment, so the hard work will have to be sustained in order to continue playing their best chess throughout the match.
Dealing with the toll on one’s body
The world championship is a three-week long event, and by the end of it, the outcome could easily come down to which player feels the fresher, both physically and mentally. This is an aspect of the game where Ding has experience while Gukesh doesn’t. First world championship appearances often come down to having the ability to still play your best chess deep into the tournament.
Anand found out in 1995 that it wasn’t an easy thing to do. After eight successive draws to begin that match against Garry Kasparov, Anand won the ninth. At the halfway point, he was in control of his destiny. Everything was going to plan. Until it wasn’t. He lost four of the next five matches. The world championship dream was put on hold.
“I think what I remember strongly from the first match was simply, things went very badly against me in the third week. And that was quite a shock. I couldn’t see it coming. Essentially, I was the same person I was one or two days before. But suddenly, it appeared that I couldn’t cope with the situation,” Anand said.
So, the ability to remain mentally strong in the face of the tide turning against you is an important ability for a player to have. On the other hand, the format also allows for a player to make a comeback even after a below-average first half of the match. However, without the physical and mental fitness to enable you to last that distance, technical ability alone will not pull a player through such trying circumstances.
Gukesh himself has a little bit of experience in pulling himself out of a tricky spot on the big stage. In the Candidates tournament, he had lost to Alireza Firouzja at the halfway stage of the tournament. After that, Gukesh didn’t lose a single game in the back-half of the tournament, despite playing a host of players who had prior experience of playing at that big a stage previously, including Fabiano Caruana and Nepomniachtchi – previous winners of the Candidates tournament. He won two of his last three games against Nijat Abasov and Firouzja, despite the pressure he was under in the tournament scoreboard. Gukesh clearly has the experience of getting going when the going gets tough.
“You have a very, very strong opponent on the other side of the board and things can go unexpectedly wrong. You have to have the resilience, the chess ability to pull yourself together and continue to, fight for your chances and pose your problems,” Anand said, when asked what his message to Gukesh would be based on his own debut at a world championship.
Anand’s fifth world title, in 2012, was another lesson in the ability to last the distance, as he was stretched to the rapid tie-breaks by Boris Gelfand. He somehow found a reserve of strength to win a game in the rapid format, which gave him another world title. At any point over the three weeks in Singapore, if Gukesh finds himself in a spot of bother, he knows Anand’s career lies right in front him to find inspiration from.
The impact of a player’s support team
In between the world championship, the players’ seconds have a really important role to play, not only in the actual chess preparation, but also in keeping the players in the right mental space. The importance of having an entire team that you are comfortable around, and whom you trust, is second to none.
“Generally, when you feel comfortable with someone you know you can trust completely in your room itself, your demeanor is different, right? So, I think, a team is a vital thing. And if you can find a group that you’re very comfortable with, that you, who’s a company you enjoy simply, it makes handling the tension much easier,” Anand said.
Gukesh’s team in Singapore will consist of his long-time trainer Grzegorz Gajewski, and a couple of others who are yet undisclosed. His father Rajnikanth has also traveled with him at every important tournament so far and will once again be an integral part of the team in Singapore.
How to overcome unexpected setbacks
Just as with any competitive sport, one cannot be prepared for every possible scenario. Surprises are a norm in elite sport. Being prepared enough to deal with those setbacks is a non-negotiable quality for elite players to have.
Ding had that in spades in the last edition, when he beat Ian Nepomniachtchi to the world title, after significantly trailing at the halfway point, and also dealing with news of his preparations being leaked in public from his Chess.com account. His second Richard Rapport had earlier told the Indian Express that his team had to entirely start their preparations once again following the news of the leak.
Anand himself remembers an instance from his 2008 match against Vladimir Kramnik, where just 15 minute before one of the rounds, he was worrying about a line, and couldn’t reach any of his trainers in that instance. In his book Mind Master, Anand writes about how his wife Aruna had stopped him worrying with a simple message: “Onnum panna mudiyadhu ma… Poi vilayaadu” [Nothing can be done now, just go and play].
Anand says that was an important message because there was a distinct possibility that line may not even have appeared in the game, and it helped him stop worrying about the situation at a critical juncture just before the start of a crucial game. “So now throw some imaginary cold water on your face, take a deep breath and go in. That’s always good advice. It’s one of the best advice for, I think, any sporting situation. Not easy to follow, but, very, very good advice,” he said.
Whether of his own doing or not, Gukesh is bound to face situations beyond his expectations in Singapore. Perhaps an 18-year-old brain will help in not overthinking the situation. But in case it does, the message is simple: Poi vilayaadu [Go and play].