'Gukesh will never be like Magnus Carlsen': Coach Gajewski on new world chess champion

NEW DELHI: Polish chess grandmaster and D Gukesh's coach during the recently-concluded FIDE World Chess Championship, Grzegorz Gajewski has reflected on the rise of the new world chess champion Gukesh.

He drew comparisons between his protégé and Magnus Carlsen, who is a five-time world champion and also regarded as the greatest chess player of all time.

Gajewski, however, highlighted a clear distinction in their styles, emphasizing that Gukesh’s analytical approach sets him apart from Carlsen’s intuitive gameplay.

“He will never be a player like Magnus Carlsen in the sense of being an intuitive kind of a player,” Gajewski told The Hindu. “He (Gukesh) likes to calculate and he likes to go deep into position. He doesn’t like to make moves just purely based on intuition. He will never play in the Magnus style, but he can very well mimic it.”

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Having worked with legendary five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, Gajewski went on to explain how Gukesh compares with some of the game’s other greats.

He hailed Anand as one of history's greatest talents for calculation but noted that Gukesh’s patience and precision make him a unique force on the chessboard.

“Vishy, in terms of talent for calculation, perhaps no one in the history of the game could match him. But at the same time, he was so fast that sometimes it became his weakness. Gukesh somewhat resembles a young Fabiano Caruana,” he remarked.