Paddy Upton reveals what it was like working with D Gukesh: 'Realised I was talking with a very special human being'

Mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton was part of Gukesh Dommaraju's team for the FIDE World Championship that took place in Singapore between 25 November and 12 December. Upton’s influence on Gukesh would clearly help as the 18-year-old Indian Grandmaster ended up defeating China's Ding Liren to become the youngest world champion in the history of the sport.

The South African, however, had his doubts when he first received an offer to work with Gukesh, and nearly did not take up the offer. Speaking in a video posted on his YouTube channel, the 56-year-old revealed that it was ultimately a phone call with the young Indian chess sensation that ultimately changed his opinion and convinced him to take up the role.

“So somewhere in the middle of 2024, I got a phone call asking, would I consider working with a 17-year-old chess player. Initially, the answer in my head was no, because 17 tends to be a bit young for the kind of work I do, because youngsters tend not to have that ability to really have self-awareness and self-reflect. I know nothing about chess, and I didn’t even know if my work is applicable in chess,” Upton said in the video.

More from Chess

Paddy Upton reveals ‘one small adjustment’ that helped D Gukesh become chess world champion Singapore minister says servers used in DeepSeek-linked fraud case may contain Nvidia chips

“Then I came to understand how the chess world works. You get a world champion who sits on their throne for two years and three quarters of the way through that with six months to go, a big tournament happens called the Candidates and whoever wins it gets to challenge the world champion, and has six months to prepare for that. It is 14 games of classical chess which is the long format and young Gukesh at 17-years-old, was the youngest person ever to win the Candidates, and I said well let me at least have a conversation with this young chess player.

“Very soon into that conversation I realised I was talking with a very special human being. His ability to self-reflect was remarkable. The quality of his questions, the mental and emotional maturity was so far beyond his years. And it was no surprise that at 17-years-old, he was the youngest person ever to win the Candidates,” Upton added.

Also Read | D Gukesh likened to Jacques Kallis, Virat Kohli by mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton

Upton wasn’t entirely convinced if he methods, which had helped the Indian men’s cricket team win the 2011 World Cup at home and the men’s hockey team win bronze in the Paris Olympics, would work in chess. That, however, did not stop him from giving it a shot.

“I said, yes, let’s give it a try. But I really don’t know if my work is that applicable in chess. I’ve worked in 19 other sports. And all of those other sports, the primary performance tool was the body, the physical body, either running, jumping, hitting, kicking, swimming, climbing, whatever it might be. And I was working on the mind, which is the supporting tool for those skills. But chess is the first time where I work with someone whose primary performance tool is the brain.

Upton left impressed by Gukesh’s ‘ability and clarity’

He also revealed how Gukesh had reached out to him after Ding defeated him in Game 12 to level the scores at 6-6 – the first time the two had a conversation since the best-of-14 Classical games got underway at Resorts World Sentosa.

“Gukesh won the 11th game to go one up. He lost the 12th game very badly. He was comprehensively beaten by an almost perfect game by his opponent, Ding Liren, which levels the score at 6-6 with two to play. That was the first time that Gukesh reached out in that 12-game period, to have a conversation, to process everything that happened. He talked me through his process of how he had navigated the one, the day before, how he managed the loss, and what his mindset was going into the final two games.

“I was so excited by his ability and his clarity on how he had let go of that 12-game loss for the three or four hours of the event, how much clarity he had on pressing the reset, and the amazingly focus and clarity and calmness that he had moving into the final two games,” Upton added.

Gukesh would go on to capitalise on a blunder by Ding in the 14th and final Classical game to win it by 58 moves, sealing a 7.5-6.5 victory over the Chinese GM in the process.