Gukesh reveals he wasn't always a calm kid, credits meditation and yoga for turnaround: 'I used to throw tantrums'

Reigning Classical world champion D Gukesh is known for his soft-spoken demeanour and for his humility, which make him the complete opposite of world No 1 Magnus Carlsen – someone who doesn’t hold back and has found himself waging a war of words with the likes of Hans Niemann and even FIDE.

Gukesh, however, wasn’t always this calm individual who rarely expresses emotions. The 19-year-old recently revealed at an event in Poland’s Katowice, where he faced Polish Grandmaster Jan-Krzysztof Duda in a series of blitz exhibition games, that he used to be quite the “impulsive and short-tempered kid”.

Gukesh added that his inability to control his emotions would often affect his game and reflect in his results, and credits meditation and yoga for transforming him into the person he is today.

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“I was always like a very impulsive, very short-tempered kid. I used to throw tantrums and like not manage my emotions. Then I realised that it’s affecting my chess because whenever I would lose a game, the next few games too I would be very affected by it and I would not be able to play well," Gukesh said .

“So I just realized that I should manage my emotions better. That’s when I started doing some good practices like meditation and yoga, which really helped me to manage my emotions. It not only helps in chess but like all walks of life.

“I can’t say like I’m like that advanced in yoga or something like that. But like I just do very simple and basic movement while focusing on breathing. Most of it is related to meditation. I don’t really know much about yoga. I just know some basics and I do that at work,” the Indian GM, who hails from Chennai, added.

Besides calming him down, meditation appears to have improved Gukesh’s game as well, with the GM known for often going into a trance-like state in the middle of a game in which he keeps his mind engaged in calculating the next set of moves.

Gukesh reveals his new ambition after fulfilling childhood dream

Gukesh had charted a meteoric rise last year, becoming the youngest champion at the Candidates Tournament and starring in India’s golden sweep at the Chess Olympiad before fulfilling his lifelong dream of being crowned world champion after defeating China's Ding Liren in Singapore.

He not only became the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand to be crowned world champion, he also broke Garry Kasparov’s record of the youngest Classical world champion in the history of the game.

And when asked about his current ambition, now that he has fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming world champion, Gukesh said that his goal now was to become the best player in the world.

“My childhood dream was to become the world champion. But at some point it became just be the best player. The youngest and all these things didn’t really matter too much to me. It was about being the best and keep improving throughout my life to achieve that.

“To be the one player in the whole world who is like the best player, who you could clearly say that this is the best player in the world. That has become my dream. It’s still a long way to go,” Gukesh added.