OSLO: At a time when D Gukesh has faced criticism from some of the world's top players, Peter Heine Nielsen has come out in support of the world champion. Nielsen, the long-time coach of Magnus Carlsen, praised the Indian's 'courageous' displays over-the-board. The Dane, who was also a pivotal member of Viswanathan Anand's camp, appreciated Gukesh's risk-taking ability.
"They (Gukesh and his team of seconds) came up with a very interesting strategy (against Ding Liren at the World Championship in 2024) in my opinion," he said in a select interaction during the fifth round at Norway Chess. "The preparation was, in my opinion, very modern. He took incredible risk by putting incredible pressure. If you have his style, you will lose some games where you will look very bad."
Some of his critics have tended to focus on the Indian's positional understanding — or a lack thereof as he has been known to overextend and keep pushing in search of victories even in dead drawn games — but Nielsen said 'we should acknowledge that Gukesh is at least doing it on purpose'.
"He is taking risks which he thinks is justified to put his opponent under maximum pressure. While you will look stupid when you lose, you still only lose only one point. So, he probably thinks this is the right strategy for him and it is a courageous strategy. Others may do it differently but I think he was doing it on purpose and he became the world champion."
Nielsen, who had played a big part of the backroom staff in nearly every World Championship match for the better part of this century, missed out in 2024. He will not be a part of the match in 2026 as well but how does he see the clash as it stands? "It's very hard to predict and it's also players I don't know very well," he said of the upcoming match between Gukesh and Javokhir Sindarov.
"I have known their games but I haven't spoken to them a lot. If either player wins by three points, I would not be massively shocked. It could happen. They are both very cool players, take risks and have a lot of confidence." While he opined that Sindarov had an edge because of form, the 53-year-old also added that 'six months ago, we weren't talking about Sindarov'.
Rd 6 results (Monday): Open: Vincent Keymer bt D Gukesh, Magnus Carlsen bt Alireza Firouzja, Wesley So bt R Praggnanandhaa; Women: Bibisara Assaubayeva bt Koneru Humpy (Armageddon), Zhu Jiner bt Anna Muzychuk (Armageddon), Ju Wenjun bt Divya Deshmukh
