Chess legend Magnus Carlsen is highly impressed with D. Gukesh’s attention to detail and the in-depth study that has propelled him to excel in the classical format. Gukesh recently won the World Chess Championship in December 2024, becoming the youngest world champion in chess history .
Gukesh is yet to make a significant mark in the faster formats, such as rapid and blitz, and recently finished eighth in Stage 1 of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 . However, the 18-year-old Indian Grandmaster has already established himself as one of the best in classical chess under normal time control.
Gukesh’s greatest strengths lie in his ability to stay calm under pressure and solve complex calculations over the board. These qualities were the foundation of his triumph over Ding Liren, as he became only the second Indian to be crowned world chess champion.
Carlsen breaks downs Gukesh’s chess game
Carlsen recently acknowledged these qualities of Gukesh when he appeared on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast . The world’s No.1 chess player said: “You have the current classical world champion from India, Gukesh. He doesn’t play casual games at all. He just studies his ass off all the time. He’s also not good at rapid chess, not good at blitz, he’s not good at other forms. But he has made all his studies about classical chess. He didn’t even own chess software on his computer before he was like 13. And he was already a grandmaster at that time.”
The 34-year-old Norwegian made the comments while trying to compare different playing styles. He even compared Alireza Firouzja and Gukesh.
“A few years ago, I had a training camp with a kid called Alireza Firouzja, he plays for France now, but he’s from Iran originally. He was about 14 then. And my chess coach had like recommended that we bring him in because he said that this is the most talented kid out there. So we have this camper. Typically everybody has their laptop and there’s a chess board in the middle. And you sort of look at your own thing and then some things together on the board and you throw out ideas, mostly for openings, but also sometimes other little exercises and so on," Carlsen said.
“And this kid, he would have his laptop where he would analyze a certain position and then he would play games, like for money on that same site at the same time so that he could buy cloud engine, because the very best engines they’re stronger, if they’re in the cloud than from your own laptop generally. So he would buy time for that by playing games like one minute games on that server. He would play five minute games on another server and he would analyze with us on the board and he was thrilled like following everything like he had no problems whatsoever just being there. So that’s one way of doing it.
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More ShortsCarlsen compares Firouzja and Gukesh
Further comparing Firouzja and Gukesh, Carlsen said: “You see that in these guys’ playing style. The guy who has been playing constantly all the time, from when he was little, he has fantastic instincts, especially with the little time, he just knows where the pieces go. He’s the only one of the kids who has that kind of feeling,” he added.
“The Indian guy (Gukesh), on the other hand, from the way he studies, during games, he’s meticulous, he calculates, he sees every position as a problem he has to solve, more than what does my intuition tell me? It’s like, for him, it’s more, this is possible, this is possible. Let me try and see this all the way through. So it’s just very, very different. They call it like the tortoise and the hare sometimes.”