OSLO (NORWAY): On June 1 2025, D Gukesh, in a way, had reached the apogee of his career for a second time. Sure, he was already the youngest undisputed men's world champion. But in elite chess, you have beat Magnus Carlsen in an OTB Classical game to seemingly earn the respect of your contemporaries as well as legends. On that grim cloudy Sunday in Stavanger, the stars finally aligned for the Indian teen as took down the Norwegian great in an endgame for the ages.
As soon as the world No. 1 knew he was about to lose, he lost control and slammed the table in frustration. It sent pieces flying off the board. Lost in the game's most viral moment of the year — Champions League winners PSG tweeted about it and Indian influencers on Insta went to town about it — was what the potential of what the win could do for Gukesh's still fledgling career.
It's fair to say the win hasn't had the desired effect. In fact, the Indian has endured a wretched last 12 months. So much so that he pulled out of featuring in the Grand Chess Tour to focus on 'training'. It's why his next two weeks is an important pitstop in an already truncated season as he builds up to defend the title against Uzbekistan's Javokhir Sindarov.
At the Norway Chess in Oslo, one of the most prestigious events on the calendar, the teen will make a return to the Classical format for the first time since the first week of March.
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At an event in Stockholm in April, Carlsen, who will be the favourite to retain Norway Chess, had anointed Sindarov as the 'favourite' in that upcoming title match later this year. "At the moment, it's impossible not to say Sindarov," the Norwegian five-time champ had said. "We know anything can happen in a World Championship match. Gukesh has very obvious weaknesses... Sindarov does not. He is a lot more rounded."
Comments like these have followed Gukesh ever since he became world champion in 2024. In fact, it has been suggested to this paper that the 19-year-old — he will turn 20 during the course of the Oslo competition — has had to work on the mental side of the game because of the intense scrutiny his crown has received. Only last month, Garry Kasparov, one of the greatest to have ever moved a piece, also wasted little time in calling the Uzbek as the favourite.
"The way he won the Candidates, it was very impressive. It's hard to impress me, but the way Sindarov played... exceptional. Sindarov looks like the clear favourite." That's also true because Sindarov's Candidates performances and results were generational. He broke records and won with a round to spare.
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Apart from Carlsen, Gukesh will also face Wesley So (World No. 10), R Praggnanandhaa (World No. 16), Alireza Firouzja (World No. 11) and Vincent Keymer (World No. 7). So this tournament is going to accurately capture where Gukesh is right now, both in terms of the reset he decided to have earlier this year and whether he has rediscovered his ability to grind out wins while playing fighting chess.
What made the Indian a great player at such a young age was his ability to keep finding resources — something Kasparov also mentioned — to either push for a win or fight in losing endgames. Some of his games in recent times, however, has seen him lose because of a blunder. One Nodirbek Abdusattarov match in Prague saw him blunder and resign a few moves later. It was almost a replay of the match between the two rivals at Wijk aan Zee -- the Indian's only other Classical event this year -- where a blunder and a resignation followed.
If the Indian, who will continue to have coach Grzegorz Gajewski in his corner, is able to to arrest that in Oslo, that will go someway in arresting the worrying slide he has been on. But the important thing to remember about Gukesh is his capacity to fight for his life in the biggest moments. While he hasn't had the greatest time of it off late, he has always risen to the fore during the biggest stages, be it at the Olympiad, Candidates or the World Championships.
It's a point Fabiano Caruana, who played in the Candidates in 2024 which Gukesh won, made in a Podcast recently. "It’s very easy to just say Sindarov is going to win," the US GM had said in April. "But Gukesh has had tournaments like this—the Olympiad, the Candidates, he’s won tournaments. Do we really assume that a 19-year-old is just done? Like he had a bad period and he’s just finished? I see no reason why Gukesh cannot recover and then the question is, ‘Is Sindarov going to be in as good form as here?’ If he is, then yeah, probably nobody’s stopping him."
With just six months remaining between now and the first game of that match, the home stretch for Gukesh begins in Norway's south coast.