OSLO: Within a few minutes of sitting next to Javokhir Sindarov, it's evidently clear that this year's World Championship is going to be out of the ordinary. His opponent, D Gukesh, has already assembled his team of seconds for the match. They have already cancelled some tournaments to focus on the Championship, the biggest title in individual chess play. His team and he have already mapped out what they will do every day between now and November 23, the day when it's scheduled to start.
Sindarov? His team have started working in the background but the Uzbek 20-year-old says 'he will learn about some of Gukesh's games' over the next few months. Right now, he has some pressing 'emergencies'. Figuring out a way to recover his counter-strike 2 account. Sometime over the next few weeks, he will also be flying to the US to support Uzbekistan at the World Cup.
It's why this title clash promises to be a clash of contrasts. Gukesh is known for his intensity, months of preparation and an identity rooted around chess. The person sitting on the opposite side of the board come November? He's light, goofy and has a smile that can light up a dark room. Heck, in the middle of the Candidates tournament in Cyprus in April, he hard-launched his relationship with Bibisara Assaubayeva. For him, chess is something to be enjoyed. Fun. Cool.
It's why when he's in conversation during Round eight of Norway Chess, he can hardly stop smiling. The Indian press corps ask questions about the World Championship, about Gukesh and about his contemporaries but he just wants to talk about his childhood and video games.
It's the ideal starting point in his story because without his love for video games, chess may not have happened. "Even when I was four or five, I just loved playing on the computer," the 2025 World Cup winner says. "There would be times in the night when after everybody had gone to sleep in the house, I would be up playing games till like 5 or 6 in the morning. That's when my grandfather decided to teach me chess."
If that was his first foray into the board game in a part of the world where the game is revered, his second tryst showed that he had the talent. At first, his family members had no problems checkmating him. Less than six months later, he was beating his family members. Father and grandfather were routinely suffering in his hands. Pretty soon, the hold he had over his family extended to age-group tournaments covering Uzbekistan. He was wiping the floor with the competition and it also contained a certain Nodirbek Abdusattarov, another among the country's golden generation.
Even as his ascent continued and fame spread far and wide — he was of course part of the team which won gold at the Olympiad in Chennai — his love for video games never died. It's kind of why he says he's not very professional as a chess player. "Everyone in chess I think should generally be more professional than me (laughs). I like playing games and I have never felt anything wrong about it." He confirms that his current coach hasn't set any screen time — not yet anyway — but he does say that video games, for him, acts as an important release. "Maybe the emergency I had yesterday is a signal that I have to focus more on chess but I like to play counter-strike."
While the World No. 4 has always thought of himself as a player with 'lots of potential', he has combined that natural ability with spending a lot of time studying the game over the last year. "It's not like I got lucky or something (at the World Cup or the Candidates," he says. "I spent a lot of time, 9-10 hours per day for about 80-90 days in the last year. And the results are there." Apart from winning two FIDE tournaments, a ratings jump of 67 in the last 12 months is also proof.
Though he's guarded when asked about the match against Gukesh, his ambitions are pretty clear. "I'm playing chess because I want to become better than everyone else," he says, that smile still plastered on his face. "I don't know if I will but I want to try. Why else am I playing the game?"
Once he comes back from the World Cup and post the home Olympiad in Samarkhand in August, the 20-year-old phenom will start learning Gukesh's games. He will keep doing the things that give him happiness and chess is only a small part of it.
But make no mistake. He's coming for the throne.
