"Gukesh did extremely well at the Olympiad. It brought him and Sindarov closer in terms of match odds" — Peter Svidler

Peter Svidler

Russian GM and commentator

“I’m not going to be moved away from my feeling that Sindarov starts as a favorite, but I liked Gukesh’s approach and I like the results.

We have no idea what’s happening in terms of his preparation, how he’s approaching it in purely chess terms, how he’s approaching it mentally and so on. But you just need to win games of chess. Winning games of chess is what makes you feel better about yourself. And he won a great number at the Olympiad. He did extremely well.

It brought them closer in my mind in terms of what’s going to happen in November-December. It was good to see him play energetic, risk-taking chess, and it was good to see it working. Because he has been doing it for a while but it was clearly not working in a lot of the events he played this year.

Gukesh did play very, very risky chess during this Olympiad. But he was playing board four and he was expected to basically play for a win every single game with whichever color he was given.

Whatever was happening in his mind, whatever was happening in his game prior to coming to the Olympiad, he was always going to be playing exactly like this at the Olympiad. Because you’re really not supposed to play quote-unquote correct chess on board four if you’re Gukesh. You’re supposed to be the person who wins the vast majority of his games.

And that does require taking risks.”