Gukesh Dommaraju

Reigning World Champion

“Since a young age, I’ve been playing a lot of Opens. And to win them you need to be tricky, you need to start winning a lot of games. It’s just the way I was brought up. It’s who I am.

Sometimes it’s okay but in chess you have to be objective. You need to give in to the demands of the position and sometimes when you want the result too much, it gets in the way of your objectivity and that’s what’s been happening.

I lost so many games which I should have just played and saved. So yeah, it’s something related to self-control and managing expectations. All these are very minor things, but that’s what makes the difference at the top, because everybody plays at a very high level. There’s no excuse for not being objective.

Even though I’m playing badly and it’s frustrating, chess is still something that I want to spend time with. To do something badly for a long time… If you don’t have any kind of love for the game, there’s no reason to continue.”