With how the year has gone, how do you look at the rest of the months in the lead up to the World Championship?

Gukesh: Obviously it’s not been great, especially this tournament. It’s been a tough phase. Obviously not many positives to look at right now, but okay, there are still six months. What I need to do is clear: just work hard and try to get back to form, try to relax a bit around the results. It’s a challenge and I am just trying my best.

How long does it take for you to reset from defeats?

Gukesh: It depends on the tournament, on how draining it was. I try to listen to what I’m feeling at the moment. This tournament, even though it was tough, I did have a couple of good moments also. In the first half, I was doing more or less okay. Then there was the second half where it collapsed. Probably a couple of days and I should be fine.

World champion D Gukesh on a sail boat during the Norway Chess Games day in Oslo during the recent Norway Chess tournament. (Express Photo by Amit Kamath)

Having Javokhir Sindarov here — obviously he was in Oslo to support Bibisara Assaubayeva — was that like a visual reminder that there’s a world championship coming six months down the line?

Gukesh: I think for world championships, you don’t need a reminder (laughs). It’s always there at the back of your mind. Him being here was kind of funny to me. It’s nice that they’re having a good time.

In chess you have to be objective, you need to give in to the demands of the position. 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 safe. It’s something related to self control, and managing expectations.

Speaking about Javokhir, on the Norway Chess games day, there was a moment where you and him swapped boats. What was that moment like? And how much did you enjoy sailing?

Gukesh spoke about managing expectations of the rest of the world; his objectivity in games getting clouded by him wanting the result too much (Express Photo)

Gukesh: The sailboat was nice, but like we’re not doing much. But the speedboat was really fun. It was like the first time I was driving a boat. It was like it was a really nice experience. That too on my birthday.

During tournaments, these moments are very rare, right? Usually like it’s all chess for you…

It is still like that for me. It’s just that this was part of the official tournament in Norway Chess games. We’re anyway outside and not training. So you might as well have fun. And it’s in general having fun on the rest day. In other tournaments, on rest days I go for sports, walk with Gayu (his coach Grzegorz Gajewski) or with some friends. So a bit of activity is quite nice.

World champion D Gukesh on a sail boat during the Norway Chess Games day in Oslo during the recent Norway Chess tournament. (Express Photo by Amit Kamath)

But when you go for tennis and things like that, you also look at that as something that helps you be better at chess, right? So this sailing was something that was like a momentary pause for you…

Gukesh: It is a challenge to switch on and switch off. I think that’s one of the qualities that people who are consistent and have sustainable and long careers have. They are able to switch on and switch off when they need to. I still have to develop that quality, but overall I think it was a very nice experience on the rest day.

What is the hardest thing about being a world champion? We have had 17 before you, so everybody has had their own experiences. But from your personal experience, what’s the hardest thing?

Gukesh: I think for me, managing expectations has been the hardest thing.

As much as you try to switch yourself off from the outside world, you’re still aware that there is, you know, this kind of elephant in the room that, like you are expected (to do things).

I’m in general also an ambitious player and I keep going for wins. Considering all these things it has been pretty hard. It’s a challenge. I either break from it or grow through it. Right now it is not looking great, but let us see, we still have time.

You mentioned you are an ambitious player. So there must be positions where you know that you could easily play for a draw. But it would just be a very un-Gukesh thing to do. Which is why you push for wins and maybe you end up losing, right?

Gukesh: I mean, it’s just the nature of who I am. Since a young age, I’ve been playing a lot of open tournaments and you need to win a lot of games. 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 just the nature of who I am. In chess you have to be objective, you need to give in to the demands of the position. 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 safe. It’s something related to self control, and managing expectations. All these are very, very minor things, but that’s what makes the difference at the top, because everybody plays at a very high level.

I’m still working with Paddy Upton. Work has been going great. You can have all the best support but the challenge is still a pretty tough one. I’m very happy where I am compared to a couple of months back. But it’s clear I still have a long way to go to be at my peak ahead.

When you talk about pushing for wins, do you remind yourself that you also pushed for wins in both the Olympiads, the Candidates and the World Championships it actually worked out?

Gukesh: Not really, 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.

There’s nothing more to it.

When you say manage yourself better, in what sense do you mean?

Gukesh: Just be more disciplined on the board like manage my ambitions better because being ambitious is good as long as you control it.

I mean anything is good as long as you control it but lately my strengths have been like controlling me, which is understandable because it’s a new phase for me. It’s not a phase that a lot of 19- or 20-year-olds go through. So I think I can cut myself a bit of slack. If I want to grow, I need to do some hard things right.

World champion D Gukesh speaks to the arbiter while his opponent Vincent Keymer contemplates his next move during their round 1 game at the Norway Chess tournament in Oslo. (Photo: Michal Walusza/Norway Chess)

What are these hard things maybe?

Gukesh: Be as serious about the process as I can, but relaxed about the results. Make peace with whatever has happened. Try my best going further. Trying my best means being ambitious but not letting it control my decisions.

Till last week you were a teenager. Do you ever tell yourself that it’s fine, I am still a teen.

Gukesh: I think whenever you say something like that, you’re kind of tricking yourself. Because you know that you care, you know that this means a lot. And then if you try to tell yourself, ‘okay, that’s fine’, it’s not really true. You’re not tricking yourself. The truth is I care. I do get affected, but I need to be performing despite all that.

And like about the age, I’m not using it as an excuse. It’s just that, it’s normal, but also it’s like I don’t want to be normal. It’s like I want to do something more to strive for greatness. So I’m not using it as an excuse. It’s just that I can understand these problems better now. It doesn’t mean it’s fine.

Just one last thing from my side, Sindarov spoke a lot about Counter Strike. I was wondering, do you have a similar release apart from chess where you just fully immerse yourself and just forget about chess for like half a day.

Gukesh: I think my friends are a big part of my life. Even when I’m at home or when I’m at tournaments, when I talk to them, I feel great. These are not chess players, but like chess-related friends, people who I have met along this journey. And also other friends who I have known from childhood. They are a huge part of my life. I like listening to music. I like doing something physical like running and walking.

The world has spent the last 18 months trying to analyse what’s gone wrong with his results since he became the youngest world champion in chess history in December 2024. Gukesh has his own analysis. (Express Photo)

You worked with Paddy Upton for the last World Championship. This year, have you put in an additional effort on the mental aspect of the sport?

Gukesh: I’m still working with Paddy. Work has been going great. You can have all the best support but the challenge is still a pretty tough one. I’m very happy where I am compared to a couple of months back. But it’s clear I still have a long way to go to be at my peak ahead. But all I can do is improve. I always feel like improvement happens before results happen. So if I genuinely believe improvement is happening, then the results will catch up once again.

For anybody, becoming the world champion is such a huge drive that most people are lucky enough not to achieve it. So they have constantly something to push themselves towards. Because when that happens, you need to find something else that drives you. So it’s like it is a new phase. Obviously it is not like I am sitting on the couch and that’s why my results are what they are. I am still putting in a lot of work, but there are very minute things which I have to think about and I’ve been thinking about a lot. It is a challenge. I mean, I remember after the cricket team won the 2011 World Cup, they had this streak of results going into the next couple of years where they were doing pretty badly.

You like Abhinav Bindra’s autobiography, where he writes about a lack of motivation after becoming Olympic champion. Did you relate with that? As you said, everybody is pushing themselves because they are chasing the world championship. You already achieved it at the age of 18. To find that new target, was that difficult?

Gukesh: Yeah, for sure. Like I mean you can still do the work, you can still do everything that you’ve been doing, but you know the reason why you’re doing it is different. Like you know not waking up as somebody striving for the world championship title. You’re already there. But it doesn’t mean you have to lose all the motivation.

There was obviously some — probably in parts of 2025 — there was some motivation issues. But if you really love the sport, like if you’re able to connect back to it… as people say, find the reason why you started playing the sport. I feel like external results are not reliable sources of motivation for a very long time. So something that drives you from within. That’s something that I’ve been trying to connect with.

What is it that you really enjoy about chess right now?

Gukesh: Right now, it’s a challenge. I can’t say that I’m fully there yet, but I’m focusing on just having fun waking up everyday, trying to learn something new about chess. I don’t know anything else that I want to spend my whole day with. Chess is something even though I’m playing badly and it’s frustrating, it’s still something that I want to spend time with. If you do something badly for a long time and you know if you don’t have any kind of love for the game, then there’s no reason to continue. But just the fact that I’m trying so hard means that there is something behind all of this.

Just connecting with it, I think, is the reason that I want to go on.