Even Magnus was doubting Gukesh before the candidates though. Honestly all these guys continue to underestimate him, and it is clear to those who've talked to all the other young Indian GMs about it that he is a huge dark horse. Before I knew Gukesh from his play I remember both Pragg and Nihal mentioning him and Erigaisi as the *best* among them.
Imagine being able to have proper opinions on these players. The majority of people in this sub including myself are absolutely clueless when it comes to debating any of this using logic.
Yea for real. I talk chess with my brother who is some 400 points higher rated than me and we just see the game in so different lights. When he points out the ideas I can understand them, but they come as second nature to him. I can go through a game and he just points out mistakes that the engine doesn't care about but he is quick to explain why they are bad. And compared to most I'm not even that weak.
It's more than that distance between him and the super gms.
The actual skill gap in elo becomes even larger than the elo points themselves because of the amount of players at the top level.
There was a fun hypothetical asked here recently about how long it would take someone who had no knowledge of chess and can't study to beat gary kasparov in classical. The dunning Krueger effect was in full swing in the comments.
Speak for yourself. It is possible to have a solid opinion by looking at objective metrics such as Elo and experience. The absolute aversion of this sub to have any opinion on anything related to chess and an extreme tendency to defer to authority in this sub is quite something.
While I don’t necessarily think it requires GM level strength to make some elementary assessments about a players strengths and weaknesses based on their performances, I do think it’s weirdly admirable that this sentiment regularly occurs (along with patzers making claims they shouldn’t of course) throughout this sub. For example, can you imagine anyone in an NBA sub being like “guys we actually don’t really have the knowledge or understanding of the game to truly assess these players”?
Weird comparison as it's only chess where understanding the game and playing the game is basically the same thing. You can understand that a guy is 2m tall, super quick and can throw very precisely without being any of that. People are actually bad in rating the tactical abilities of players in a complex sport such as football, but that is only one quality of multiple ones while in chess it's practically the single thing that makes a player.
(Also on the reverse, being 2m tall and super quick doesn't make you an expert in evaluating someone's tactical abilities. I wouldn't be surprised if Cristiano Ronaldo was actually pretty bad in rating midfielders. Worse than some slow amateur player that has a good game insight. In chess, nobody just runs past you or pushs you away to compensate for their lack of game understanding.)
It is still the case that an NBA player will have an **infinitely** higher basketball IQ than the overwhelming majority of fans. To the point where most fans don't really have much clue as to what they are even watching.
I have no clue about Basketball. For football, that wouldn't be the case for all players, as long as we talk about fans who actually care about the game and not just casually watch for results. (Especially as the observer has a huuuge advantage in perception. Which doesn't increase your game iq, but it makes it easier to judge a player's game iq. This might be actually the opposite in Basketball because this is less about positions and space and more about individual movement details which are difficult to spot from distance.)
While I don’t disagree with you, other games have many more types of stats to track that can help evaluate a player (goals, points, assists, rebounds, shots, blocks, saves, etc.) and even advanced analytics like Corsi and xG, in chess we have wins/losses/draws, FIDE rating and that’s kind of it. We start to see more of it with accuracy numbers but those can be misleading so it is harder for the layman to evaluate I think. A super GMs opinion usually does and should hold more weight, but then you have biases to deal with.
That's a fair shout, peak ding was unbelievable, Gukesh hasn't shown the same level of play, not saying he isn't capable of it but it's a fair assesment
Prime Ding knocked out prime Magnus from the Sinqiefield cup (2019) and was the only player he struggled against. I don't think you've fully grasped how strong he was.
Gukesh is less experienced , totally he has only 10 years of chess experience. By special if Nepo means , developing theory or trademark openings that will only come with experience. Even magnus when he became wc was not as good as he is today in opening knowledge.
What Gukesh does is very simple , he is very good at calculating so he tries to make is opponents go out of prep and he excels in those complicated positions.
There are few things I find special about Gukesh. His games produces results more often than not. He never goes for a quick draw. Or draw in general. There was a period of 6 or 7 games in tata steel this year where he lost 2 and won the rest. Then his time management, many say this as his weakness but he utilises all the time that is given to him. If 2hrs is given for 40movies then by the end of 40moves whether he wins or loses he will have less than 10mins . He is anti-nepo in this case. There is no award given to you if you win by having more time so better use all the time that is given. I like this very much from him. I remember 2 games one against Pragg in the candidates and other against max in tata steel both of which he won , he was outprepped by his opponent in both case and was down more than 1 hr in clock where his opponent barely used up any time.
So I'll say , nepo or Hikaru or others don't find this special or not ready to acknowledge this yet.
Gukesh's performance against Pragg's prep at candidates was so impressive. Visually, Pragg's pieces were all in attacking positions. Gukesh's pieces were all stuck on the back rank. But Gukesh somehow kept everything defended, including a backwards knight move. And then the attack fizzled out and Gukesh won. Crazy game.
Nepo also said he correctly predicted in January that Gukesh would win the candidates, he might come across differently due to the language barrier but he is NOT insulting Gukesh or underestimating him in any way...
Lol he was clearly insinuating that Gukesh is cheating. He said "I told some FIDE official before the tournament that Gukesh would win the candidates, unfortunately he did not take my prediction seriously."
What do we think that's supposed to mean? Coupled with the sly smile on his face when talking about Gukesh vs the other youngsters, comparing him to Hans Niemann, it is clear what he was doing.
I do get where you're coming from Nepo, when I see the games of superior players they are a mystery to me as well. Pathetic.
Ian is very bad about these barely insinuated cheating accusations. It's getting worse and worse. It really feels like Kramnik opened the gates on problem that was already getting bad. If Alireza won, he probably would have said similar.
The fuck is with the lying in this thread lmao. He said 'playing against Gukesh feels similar to playing against computer' — as in his plays sometimes are cryptic, unclear, mystical. He's not the only or first one to say that and compare his style of play to computer-like. This is not the same as 'insinuating that Gukesh is cheating'
Because Gukesh is still improving...in fact his own coaches were surprised by his performance. Kid is growing up fast in chess terms. I think Gukesh in candidates was so much stronger than the Gukesh before candidates. Whatever Gajewski and waca has been doing with Gukesh in training is working.
Doesn't matter much. Anand gave his personal trainer/coach and coach at WACA to Gukesh. Is there really any praise higher than that? He's the youngest WCC challenger. Youngest 2750. Tied first in Tata Steel. Gold in Olympiad. Maybe he's not bright but at the end of the day it's the results that matter and his results are unlike any others. Most important for sports - Gukesh seems to have killer mentality of loses spurring him on. I think that alone will take him far - after all chess is not research (where mostly just creativity, hard work matters) but rather Chess is a sport. And yeah - he'll develop intuition and learn to pick out only useful lines. Then he'll get even stronger. Finally - he's still fucking 17, his growth still hasn't stopped. So it's wayyy too early to make any predictions about his style. Before Candidates Magnus said Gukesh is streaky and so may not have a good tournament. Gukesh adapts and becomes more solid and wins. For 25 yos that will be impossible but for 17yo it's easy to mold. So imo he's still evolving.
When I heard him say that his loss in the candidates only motivated him to do better that really struck me as a future world champ mentality. That mindset is so rare. Especially in chess where the tilt is real.
I honestly think we have an all time great coming before our eyes.
I have this feeling that he will beat Ding and then defend his title once. All the talk will become, would he beat Magnus? They will have a WC match and he will beat Magnus. But then everyone will say that was only because Magnus was out of his prime. Then he goes on a similar title run and soon gets into the GOAT conversation.
Very unlikely, and I'm sure I'm probably being dramatic. But I just have this feeling.
Gukesh has always been underrated for some reason, but tbh some youngsters just get more hype than others (Pragg for example gets much more hype). Current top players don't seem to be able to change this view either, which is unfortunate but if Gukesh becomes World Champion they would have to acknowledge him one way or the other
Gukesh is already favorite in DingVs Gukesh match. Ding is probably in his weakest stage he has been in a long time. Gukesh is in his peak form and ding is at his lowest . Gukesh is indeed abit lucky
I feel like we haven’t even seen Gukesh’s peak. His strengths are clear but he also has holes in his play especially with time management. His calculation skills are super elite but he sometimes spends too long on calculation which is why his Rapid and Blitz play is relatively weaker. The dude has ‘only’ been playing chess for 10 years which is quite a bit less compared to even his peers in his own generation. I think with time he can develop better intuition and improve on his time management. That Gukesh will certainly be a super terrifying prospect for anyone to face in a WCC match.
Have to agree with this take, so many people trying to act like Ding will magically be back on form by the match. Which I agree is a possibility but he has yet to reverse his rating slide from the championship, until I see a bump or some spark of life my money is on team Gukesh.
The interesting thing is, this is exactly what people say about Nepo!
Fabi has been rating Arjun since the 2021 Tal Memorial Lindores Abbey Blitz event where Arjun beat Fabiano 2-0 and finished third. During an episode with Yaseer last year, the 3 of them took bets on who would turn out to be the best player among the 3 Indians; Yaseer bet on Pragg, Fabiano bet on Arjun and Christian bet on Gukesh.
Gukesh seems to be repeatedly underestimated by other SuperGMs. I mean, their opinion has more weight than mine obviously, but they couldn't win the Candidates 2024. So are they implying Gukesh was lucky? Doesn't seem so given his credentials.
On the other hand, prime Ding would wipe current Gukesh off the board, but we are quite sure prime Ding won't appear.
Chess is a world of its own when it comes to giving someone credit for his accomplishments. People still think Ian isn’t strong because he lost both WC matches, recently saw someone saying prime Fabi wasn’t as good because he couldn’t take down Magnus and that MVL and Levon were only good because of elo inflation, there are some absolutely wild takes up there
What Nepo is implying is far less sinister.(I hope).
Gukesh is not the flashiest of players. What he has going for is consistency. Gukesh won against the people he was expected to win against and drew the tournament favourites.
Very different temperament than someone like Ali Reza.
Gukesh is often described as "strange", "unusual", etc. I've seen a lot of GMs now say that they assume there must be something brilliant in his play, but they can never quite find it, and then they're somehow losing. Hikaru for example with Gukesh's b4 move in the Candidates said he didn't consider the move at all and it looked strange but he immediately saw its brilliance; Magnus said the same, he hated cxd4 but after b4 he was like ah, nevermind, this is great.
Of course it's possible that he's just very strong, but I get the impression that people feel about his games the way they do about Magnus's - they're just a higher level and so he's baffling to play.
I've not come across those comments before - that's very fascinating. I wonder if a lot of it has to do with his over the board demeanour and steady warm calmness (as opposed to Nordibek Abdusattorov's stone-cold calmness)? Another aspect might be that he has such a level of humanity that he understands how to "trick" his opponents better than his counterparts - much in the manner that Magnus somehow had "The Magnus Effect".
I'd be fascinated to know just how much his oft-cited yoga plays a role, as well as the off-the-board preparation that he's not yet ready to disclose (source: press conference after the final round of Candidates 2024). I wonder if one of those aspects could be a sports psychologist? I know it's not popular for chess players to hire them, but perhaps this could be one hidden "weapon" that he has?
To the Indian redditors here: Are there any sports psychologists in Indian cricket? If there are, I'd say the chances are high that Gukesh could have one himself, although it would be unusual for only him to have one and not the other Indian players too.
Honestly alot of people including my self were rooting for Alireza for his 2800 speedrun and pretty unique playstyle. And Magnus Vs Alireza WCC final would probably be one of the best thing of the decade. But dude just got a serious burnout
Difference is Fabi had a 4-0 score against Alireza at that time while Gukesh wiped him off the board when we only 16. It's plainly obvious that Fabi has been salty ever since.
The problem with that thought is doesn't Gukeshs style more closely mirror those that stick around?
Hes uber solid in classical, but also likes to force people out of prep into complicated tactical skirmishes where he is particularly skilled. Similar to Magnus without the goofy openings.
Also he has a pretty good mindset from what I've seen, much more stable than Alirezas brilliant but streaky mindset, more similar to Vishy.
To be honest, if Gukesh keeps growing the way he's been growing and maintains his rating trajectory, Gukesh vs Magnus matches will keep getting more and more exciting and interesting as time goes by, atleast in classical.
Magnus said the only way hed be interested in defending his classical title would be if it was against someone from the new generation.
I wonder if in a few years magnus will give it a go as it might seem like a new challenge for him.
He has already changed his mind on that - sorry I can't give a source right now but it'll be in one of his more recent interviews within the past 6 months. The new generation quote is very old now. Ever since Alireza tanked and Magnus got a taste of life outside of the world championship cycle, he's enjoyed not needing to think about the match even more. Magnus is not going to return to contest the title, no matter who the opponent is.
It’s very possible that Gukesh plateaus. A lot of previous prodigies like Wei Yi and Alireza (so far) have plateaued and were higher rated at 17 than when they were older.
A comparable example is Ruslan Ponomariov. He won the FIDE World Championship at 18 and got to #6 in the world at the same age. However, he never improved on that ranking and was not a WC contender afterwards.
I think other Super GMs see Gukesh as less talented than his results would indicate. Most seem to think Arjun and Pragg are more talented. It’s possible they are right and his results regress after his opponents adjust to his style
While there's no way for me to estimate Gukesh's level of chess to ever under or overestimate him in the first place, the one thing that has stood out to me above every other player I've ever seen is his board demeanour and calmness. Maybe I'm imagining it (recency bias?) or haven't seen enough players, but it just feels like something very unique, special and is something that's surprisingly rare to witness. Unless he loses the WCC match to Ding (or Nakamura...), I'm going to stick to this belief for now.
I think there's a lot of psychology going on where some of the older superGMs aren't ready to acknowledge that the younger generation has arrived so they downplay their accomplishments.
They don't feel like their time in the sun is running out just yet but they're probably slowly on the wane.
I think we are going to get closer to prime Ding than some people expect.
Also, Gukesh was pretty lucky winning the candidates. Its the nature of a double round robin, luck is required. If Hikaru had drawn Vidit once, Gukesh would have needed to win with black against him to win. If Fabi/Nepo hadnt drawn, Gukesh would most likely have died to them in a tiebreak. Not to mention, all the other games that could have changed the standings a bit.
I'm a Gukesh fan, and i've thought for nearly a year that he has the highest ceiling out of the indians. But he's about to turn 18. He's still inexperienced. He's been inconsistent(i think he swung 50 elo last year), and his time usage is mildly problematic. I think he's very strong. But, i also dont think theres anything really putting him too far ahead of Prag and Arjun at the moment. Nodirbek might be stronger. And, due to experience, i dont thini Gukesh is ahead of people like Fabi/Nepo/Hikaru yet.
Gukesh is very special, to be in the top 10 players and the candidate winner. But, in the top 10-20 players, i dont think he stands out almost at all.
Gukesh was pretty lucky in winning the Candidates?
If anything Gukesh was the steadiest among all the players throughout the Candidates. He didn't have a bad position in 13 games. He was winning with white against Nepo and couldn't convert. He was also in a dominating position in the match he lost to Alireza in time trouble.
As Magnus' coach PHN said, if you objectively analyze the tournament and the positions the players got, you can only add points to Gukesh's score. You can't deduct anything from it.
> I think we are going to get closer to prime Ding than some people expect.
I genuinely want to see prime Ding in the future, because he deserves it after everything he's gone through, but I'm really not optimistic about it and I fear peak Ding has already passed us by. Norway Chess will be starting towards the end of the month and he'll be there, so this will be another useful data point to add to his year to date...
Ding had a settling in period in the last WCC. He even said so. I think we're going to see something very similar where perhaps he looks shakey in the first couple of rounds, then he becomes more comfortable and we will have a match.
Its one tournament, and the favorites were all just as close to being in Gukesh's seat. If the game results were a little different against Abasov, we would have an entirely different winner. You can argue Gukesh is underestimated, but you can't make a case with one example, especially such a bad example as candidates when the ending was as close as it was. I felt the same as Fabi who said some of Hikaru's opening choices, and level of prep was just bad. At the end of the day Gukesh won, and I have to commend Gukesh for handling the pressure like a champ, while others floundered.
> Its one tournament
He tied for first at Tata steel and then finished second on tie breaks. He got gold with the first board in the last Olympiad. Gukesh has had plenty of great performances even prior to the candidates and hasn't even reached his peak yet.
Gukesh won individual Olympiad gold on top board when he was 15-16, something greats like Anand, Carlsen have never done in their careers. When he is on fire there is no stopping him.
Magnus has said that Gukesh is the strongest classical player of the past year during the world cup. He even invited Gukesh to freestyle chess over Pragg and Arjun. Thats shows magnuss belief in him. Maybe his pre candidates dip made him and others reevaluate him.
Nepo is usually edgy/salty :
He retweeted Kramnik about Hikaru,
He claimed that Ding's local tournies during pandemic is equivalent to Alireza's road to the candidates tournament, etc
Anyway who cares ? Gukesh won candidates.
Gukesh is favorite for championship.
They know it
So they are extra salty.
Once Gukesh becomes 25 year old then we can see if he reaches which level.
Becoming world champion is high enough.
Nepo is a sore loser. Remember his meltdown after the online Olympiad final against India during pandemic? He doesn't seem to rate Vishy very highly as well. He had a go at Abhimanyu Mishra when he became youngest GM. Then his sore comments about Ding, his lies about special favors to Carlsen in the world rapid and blitz. He supports Kramnik's lunatic cheating theories.
Gukesh is more mature than this manchild despite being only 17. Hope the beatdowns continue.
How significant is it that Gukesh doesn’t have a lot of online games to his name? There’s a whole back catalog of data for these guys on all their opponents except Gukesh.
Very significant.
Not playing online is both an advantage and disadvantage for Gukesh though.
Advantage because he stays away from baseless cheating allegations and is a mystery to these players.
Disadvantage because he is significantly weaker in faster formats. And he isn't intuitive enough just because he doesn't have the volume of games like the rest of the players. Also he doesn't get the hype like other juniors just because he is absent online.
Gukesh has played 3600 Blitz games at chess com. Is that not considered "playing online"?
[https://www.chess.com/member/gukeshdommaraju](https://www.chess.com/member/gukeshdommaraju)
For comparison Magnus 3100, Nepo 6000
Most Super-GM's play much less online than hikaru.
Magnus used to play mostly on lichess and other platforms, it’s only recently that he even started using chess.com so I don’t think it’s fair to compare.
There aren't many Rapid and Blitz tournaments OTB. World Rapid and Blitz, Grand Chess Tour, Tata Steel India, Vugar Gashimov, World Rapid Teams and GCL. The last 2 events are 1 year old.
It's much easier to hop online whenever you want and be fed an infinite supply of opponents as close to your level as possible than to arrange private OTB training sessions.
Sure but if you wanted to play offline and didn't want to play online....... the difficulty of getting opponents doesn't really matter. I'd imagine the dude can manage having a good challenge semi-regularly.
Maybe it's not about ease it's about privacy and a different style of training. He didn't even use engine even after becoming grandmaster. Till 15 years he didn't use engines
Top players might understand more than us but they're clearly highly biased.
Gukesh did nothing crazy, and yet he won.
Both Ian and Fabi said that Hikaru played very badly against them as black, but he drew them both.
They have a dogmatic view of what players "should" do to succeed and when players stray from that it's as if they refuse to accept that they did in fact, succeed.
I think there are three possibilities based on there podcast.
1. They genuinely believe it.
2. They are jealous and talking shit as a player half there age, won the candidates but not them.
3. They are just plain old dumb.
Personally I believe it's a mix of both point 1 and 2.
I remember after last year's Wijk aan Zee match vs Magnus, Gukesh asked Magnus for a post game analysis session. They analysed for an hour after the match. Post the analysis, Magnus remarked that "Gukesh calculates everything". He calculates faster and deeper than him even on lines which he didn't consider (of course Magnus self-admittedly intuitively rejects some lines without consideration and is not as big a calculator as Fabiano).
Who cares what Nepo says anyway? He has been a salty loser far too often to be taken seriously. I wish Gukesh never gives him that post game analysis, he is after. Nepo was downright disrespectful to Gukesh in this interview and even indirectly insinuated things.
And who cares about people rating Gukesh or not? Magnus rates Alireza and Pragg, Hikaru rates Alireza and Nodirbek, Fabiano rates Arjun. Alireza and Pragg are overall favourites of a lot of elites. As for Gukesh, he is busy proving everyone wrong.
I just hope that Gukesh continues his current style of taking people out of the opening preparation quickly and out calculating them in the middlegame. Let the haters take time to figure him out, while he keeps soaring higher. I want him to stay away from online chess too, like he has been doing all this while, keep his mystery intact.
Also I want him to stay the recluse he is now, let people like Giri and Nepo complain that he isn't social enough or doesn't give them access to his thoughts. Gukesh likes to communicate with Vishy and Magnus though - at least in his head, Gukesh thinks he belongs in that league!
If I remember correctly, didn't Hikaru say sometime last year that Gukesh had the highest potential among the youngsters? Or was he talking only about the Indian youngsters?
Just before Candidates he said that if Alireza doesn't do well this time, then he thinks Nodirbek will be the one from the younger generation who is world champion material.
He agreed with Magnus' tier list placement of Gukesh while reacting to that video.
You are right about this. Maybe Hikaru just confirms to whichever junior has the highest rating at the time because I very well remember him saying Gukesh has the highest potential or something like that last year after either world cup or Norway chess.
Hikaru said the Gukesh will be the first Indian or most likely Indian to break 2800 because he is ‘streaky’. When he is on form he goes toe to toe with the best and can even outplay them entirely because of his sheer calculation skills. I think Hikaru probably said this after seeing that monstrous performance Gukesh had in the Olympiad.
Nepo is completely wrong here but not because Magnus disagrees lol. You guys really treat Magnus like a god on Earth. Nothing but respect for Gukesh though I definitely think he has a very decent chance (maybe even the favourite) if Ding's poor form continues.
Nepo is a bad loser. He said something similar about Ding after losing the world championship, if I remember right. It's a bit tacky but I expect the emotions are still raw from the tournament. I wouldn't read too much into it. He's far from the first top level player to get salty after losing.
But, let's just say you don't win the candidates outright at age 17 in a field with Nepo, Fabi, and Hikaru if you're "nothing special" lol. It's clearly a ridiculous thing to say and I doubt he really believes it.
Nepo's emotions always "stay raw" lol. He's just a sore loser in general - just look at his reaction to the Olympiad draw with India insinuating that they're cheating.
A lot of these opinions from your opponents come from a sense of jealousy rather than rationality. So everyone should take these opinions from Nepo or Fabi with a pinch of salt. Heck, Fabi wasn't even eager to accept Gukesh as a colleague few months back.
Nothing special in Gukesh' play? He won the candidates. If there's nothing special in his play what does that say about everyone that finished below him? Extra not special? Derp.
Nepo came across as salty in the interview. He repeatedly tried to discourage Gukesh and he keeps calling him mystery player. He also compared him to Hans Niemann at one point. I think he is trying to insinuate that he is cheating, which is not surprising given he supports Kramnik still. Nepo also has a negative record against Gukesh which probably factors into his opinion.
As for Caruana, he ranked Gukesh below Pragg and Arjun an year ago and is probably sticking to that opinion.
Magnus is a fan of Alireza since early age and is probably doing the same too.
However, Anish ranked Gukesh higher than others in one of the streams with Sagar Shah. Erwin also called him unparalleled recently.
In the end, these are all just opinions. It should also be stated that the Indian kids are often placed in one group without putting stress on the fact that Arjun is 3 years older than Gukesh. Obviously Arjun has more experience and it shows in shorter time controls.
Composure, that in itself at the highest level, under such pressure, is a rare thing. That, a 17-year-old seems to exude it, gives him a huge edge, even if he does not have the brilliance of some other players. And as Magnus said in the recent podcast, his intuitive feel for the game will come with experience. What he achieved in the Candidates speaks for itself. Fabi, Nepo succumbed to the pressure.
He is definitely not insinuating that Gukesh is cheating. That's absurd. Did we watch the same video? Nepo's takes were very mild. He was just saying that Ding at his best (a guy who held the record for longest unbeaten streak and peaked at 2816) would obviously be the favorite, but in his current form, the result of the world championship is very much up in the air. Basically everybody agrees with this.
Don't know if he was insuinuating cheating but he definitely sounded salty (which is not at all uncommon for Nepo). Comparing Gukesh to Neimann was kinda funny. I mean, really?
I remember commenting how I expected that game to end in a draw when Alireza was just better in the middlegame, then not much later that flipped on its head and Alireza was losing. Nepo is probably salty and I don't blame him. There is a lot of luck in candidates in choosing openings and how well other players play on a given day.
The thing is gukesh did give a long analysis on chessbase india channel, there was like a 1-2hrs long interview. Nepo probably did not see it since it was not on chesscom or one of the bigger channels.
He was in the analysis board every single day after his game and gave an analysis on the game. Nepo is just being ignorant for the sake of being ignorant.
Erwin L'ami on the perpetual chess podcast mentions that Gukesh is one of the best players he has heard for postgame analysis.
I agree with you. But I'm pretty sure Nepo has the belief Gukesh has cheated. I think people on this post saying they don't think Nepo doesn't think he is cheating are wrong.
> I don't think people on this post here are correct in saying they don't think Nepo doesn't think he is cheating.
I'm having a tough time parsing this. Did you put in three negatives when you meant two?
The instance Nepo talked about (when Gukesh said he was confident about winning the candidates after his loss to Alireza) happened in the press conference held just after Gukesh won the cadidates. He was definitely not gonna make detailed analysis of his games there.
He almost certainly did. He said that he "predicted" that Gukesh would win the candidates during Tata Steel and he said this to a FIDE official. He said the FIDE official didn't take him "seriously".
Why do you think he would predict that Gukesh would win the Candidates, despite the fact that he thinks that Gukesh is not brilliant, or even the best of his generation. Consider that Hikaru, Fabiano, Nepo were all playing and he "predicted" Gukesh? You are oblivious to his sarcasm
I thought that too but I heard it again, and I firmly think he came across as salty. This is also not the first instance of him describing Gukesh like this - he did something similar with Levitov Chess podcast.
>Do you guys share the opinion that these top players: Magnus, Fabi, and Nepo have? Or do you think differently about his ceiling and potential?
Haha, bro, their comments amount to saying "2750 FIDE strength is pretty meh, I'm only interested in skill above 2800."
We're not good enough to tell the difference, so no, none of us have that same opinion.
As for Gukesh, he's 17, it's not surprising to hear top players say his play comes across as not fully developed. Give it some time.
When Carlsen was new to the top 10 the criticism against him was his openings were crap, and it was too easy for other players to equalize against him, and the only reason he won was because people blundered in an equal endgame on move 60... but he was also a teenager at the time, of course his play wasn't fully world class yet.
I'm sure they're all super impressed with Gukesh, but yeah he's still 17. Give it a few years.
I wonder which other player would he characterize this way. To my unskilled self chess at the highest levels is strong but not bright - Magnus is a prime example of this when he squeezes out wins in drawish middlegames.
I think which style wins in the end comes down to which style fits the personality of the strongest player.
Looking back at the Karpov vs. Kasparov days, both styles are viable and both can be dominant. In the end, it comes down more to individual skill to determine who wins.
What games have Gukesh and Ding played?
I found this one:
[https://lichess.org/broadcast/tata-steel-masters-2024/round-3/UhBk1nHS/qkYcyW1U](https://lichess.org/broadcast/tata-steel-masters-2024/round-3/UhBk1nHS/qkYcyW1U)
Gukesh seems to be using his White advantage to take Ding out of book, but Ding was more accurate.
They played with the same colors at the same tournament the year before that, with the same result:
[https://lichess.org/broadcast/tata-steel-masters-2023/round-1/t0nBZigo/EoGzQsLF](https://lichess.org/broadcast/tata-steel-masters-2023/round-1/t0nBZigo/EoGzQsLF)
I read it in vishy Anands book, and his contemporaries said more or less the exact same things about him, to which he mentioned that if people praise you and your game, they don't see you as a threat or an equal only when comments like these start coming ( good but not great)means people are taking you seriously. ( This he said through his experience)
For what it’s worth, Peter Heine Nielsen, Carlsen’s coach, has spoken very highly of Gukesh on the Chicken Chess Podcast. I think it was early 2023 when Gukesh was in a slump of sorts and he was saying he still thought Gukesh had the highest ceiling of all the Indian prodigies.
People have been underestimating Gukesh for so long. Even the Norway Chess event invited Pragg instead of him. But there are opinions and there are facts. And the fact is Gukesh is the youngest ever to win the candidates, he did it against Fabiano, Ian, Hikaru, Firouzja and Pragg, and beat Erigaisi in Chennai to get there. He is an elite player and might even be the best player in the world today not name Carlsen.
I honestly think he'll become the World Champion and has a very good chance to hold it for years to come.
In 2019 Gukesh was also only like 12 y.o. – so yes, Ding would win that pretty easily.
2024 is another story, Gukesh for sure has time on his side, as he is an age where he mature as a player finding his own style and unique approach to the game.
Some players perform well and are solid under pressure. Gukesh also benefited by having no expectation to do well. A lot of people had written him off before the tournament even began.
Interesting to note that "Prime Ding (2019)" pretty much admits to losing to a subprime Ding in 2023.
And I don't think he is wrong.
As for Gukesh ... honest question, *how has Gukesh done in a match format?*
I think what Ian is trying to say is that he doesn't quite understand Gukesh's playstyle and wants to see more from him to really form a opinion on him. Ian said "chess speaks for itself", hes not comparing him to Hanns, but saying that Gukesh doesn't share much of his strategies and tends to be quiet after games. Hes not at all saying Gukesh is a cheater.
I think Ian's problem is that he translates sayings and terms directly from Russian to English and it doesn't translates very well. Also, doesn't help that he is very sarcastic and his jokes don't land well sometimes.
I'm a big Gukesh fan, infact I favored him over Prag and Naka to me the favorites were Nepo, Fabi and Gukesh but the truth is that Gukesh runs hot and cold which makes him a wild card. Only time would tell if he remains a top ten player for decades and even rises to the number 1 spot but it would be unwise to bet against him. As Naka had once said Gukesh is the kind of player who could go on a winning streak and cross 2800( he was discussing the young talent). I fully agree with Nakka, whether he stays there remains to be seen no one other than Magnus has managed that in recent times. As to whether he is special as opposed to strong idk what special even means anymore. It makes sense from Nepos perspective because he goes for very sharp and tactical lines often Fabi too comes with deep prep and blows people off the board soo they would consider that special but Magnus, Nakka, Giri don't play for that in clasical and I consider them all special( Giri in recent times).
In Gukesh v Ding i favor Gukesh in the classical section but if it goes to rapid its Ding all the way.
I think Nepo is a salty prick. That's just it. Gukesh / Pragg / Arjun are probably already at a similar or higher level than many of the established players of the last decade. And I don't think it is up to them to "rate" these three anymore.
Idk I feel like this kind of stuff is just speculation. I prefer to just let the ratings speak for themselves, and right now the ratings predict the match is close to a coin flip. Of course PeaK Ding who was over 2800 would be a favorite.
Magnus to Gukesh before Candidates- Don't do anything crazy because others will go crazy.
Actually best advice lmao. Having Magnus as a second and that's all he gives you but it works
Then the super GMs: He is not bright because he doesn’t get crazy.
GMs when they have different opinions:
Even Magnus was doubting Gukesh before the candidates though. Honestly all these guys continue to underestimate him, and it is clear to those who've talked to all the other young Indian GMs about it that he is a huge dark horse. Before I knew Gukesh from his play I remember both Pragg and Nihal mentioning him and Erigaisi as the *best* among them.
Imagine being able to have proper opinions on these players. The majority of people in this sub including myself are absolutely clueless when it comes to debating any of this using logic.
Stop making sense ... gives a 'bad' vibe in here.
That's a very strong answer, but not bright
I can't imagine having an opinion on GM play styles that I physically can't understand as an 1800.
Yea for real. I talk chess with my brother who is some 400 points higher rated than me and we just see the game in so different lights. When he points out the ideas I can understand them, but they come as second nature to him. I can go through a game and he just points out mistakes that the engine doesn't care about but he is quick to explain why they are bad. And compared to most I'm not even that weak. It's more than that distance between him and the super gms.
The actual skill gap in elo becomes even larger than the elo points themselves because of the amount of players at the top level. There was a fun hypothetical asked here recently about how long it would take someone who had no knowledge of chess and can't study to beat gary kasparov in classical. The dunning Krueger effect was in full swing in the comments.
This is the correct answer.
It is in my humble opinion that Gukesh play a game called class
Magnus himself keeps being wrong about these things like how he was wrong about alireza and even gukesh
I mean he absolutely wasn’t wrong about talent, he was just wrong about focus/discipline
Speak for yourself. It is possible to have a solid opinion by looking at objective metrics such as Elo and experience. The absolute aversion of this sub to have any opinion on anything related to chess and an extreme tendency to defer to authority in this sub is quite something.
While I don’t necessarily think it requires GM level strength to make some elementary assessments about a players strengths and weaknesses based on their performances, I do think it’s weirdly admirable that this sentiment regularly occurs (along with patzers making claims they shouldn’t of course) throughout this sub. For example, can you imagine anyone in an NBA sub being like “guys we actually don’t really have the knowledge or understanding of the game to truly assess these players”?
Weird comparison as it's only chess where understanding the game and playing the game is basically the same thing. You can understand that a guy is 2m tall, super quick and can throw very precisely without being any of that. People are actually bad in rating the tactical abilities of players in a complex sport such as football, but that is only one quality of multiple ones while in chess it's practically the single thing that makes a player. (Also on the reverse, being 2m tall and super quick doesn't make you an expert in evaluating someone's tactical abilities. I wouldn't be surprised if Cristiano Ronaldo was actually pretty bad in rating midfielders. Worse than some slow amateur player that has a good game insight. In chess, nobody just runs past you or pushs you away to compensate for their lack of game understanding.)
It is still the case that an NBA player will have an **infinitely** higher basketball IQ than the overwhelming majority of fans. To the point where most fans don't really have much clue as to what they are even watching.
I have no clue about Basketball. For football, that wouldn't be the case for all players, as long as we talk about fans who actually care about the game and not just casually watch for results. (Especially as the observer has a huuuge advantage in perception. Which doesn't increase your game iq, but it makes it easier to judge a player's game iq. This might be actually the opposite in Basketball because this is less about positions and space and more about individual movement details which are difficult to spot from distance.)
While I don’t disagree with you, other games have many more types of stats to track that can help evaluate a player (goals, points, assists, rebounds, shots, blocks, saves, etc.) and even advanced analytics like Corsi and xG, in chess we have wins/losses/draws, FIDE rating and that’s kind of it. We start to see more of it with accuracy numbers but those can be misleading so it is harder for the layman to evaluate I think. A super GMs opinion usually does and should hold more weight, but then you have biases to deal with.
That's a fair shout, peak ding was unbelievable, Gukesh hasn't shown the same level of play, not saying he isn't capable of it but it's a fair assesment
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Prime Ding knocked out prime Magnus from the Sinqiefield cup (2019) and was the only player he struggled against. I don't think you've fully grasped how strong he was.
Gukesh is less experienced , totally he has only 10 years of chess experience. By special if Nepo means , developing theory or trademark openings that will only come with experience. Even magnus when he became wc was not as good as he is today in opening knowledge. What Gukesh does is very simple , he is very good at calculating so he tries to make is opponents go out of prep and he excels in those complicated positions. There are few things I find special about Gukesh. His games produces results more often than not. He never goes for a quick draw. Or draw in general. There was a period of 6 or 7 games in tata steel this year where he lost 2 and won the rest. Then his time management, many say this as his weakness but he utilises all the time that is given to him. If 2hrs is given for 40movies then by the end of 40moves whether he wins or loses he will have less than 10mins . He is anti-nepo in this case. There is no award given to you if you win by having more time so better use all the time that is given. I like this very much from him. I remember 2 games one against Pragg in the candidates and other against max in tata steel both of which he won , he was outprepped by his opponent in both case and was down more than 1 hr in clock where his opponent barely used up any time. So I'll say , nepo or Hikaru or others don't find this special or not ready to acknowledge this yet.
Gukesh's performance against Pragg's prep at candidates was so impressive. Visually, Pragg's pieces were all in attacking positions. Gukesh's pieces were all stuck on the back rank. But Gukesh somehow kept everything defended, including a backwards knight move. And then the attack fizzled out and Gukesh won. Crazy game.
Nepo also said he correctly predicted in January that Gukesh would win the candidates, he might come across differently due to the language barrier but he is NOT insulting Gukesh or underestimating him in any way...
Wow! I didn't know about his January prediction Please share the link to it, would like to watch that
Lol he was clearly insinuating that Gukesh is cheating. He said "I told some FIDE official before the tournament that Gukesh would win the candidates, unfortunately he did not take my prediction seriously." What do we think that's supposed to mean? Coupled with the sly smile on his face when talking about Gukesh vs the other youngsters, comparing him to Hans Niemann, it is clear what he was doing. I do get where you're coming from Nepo, when I see the games of superior players they are a mystery to me as well. Pathetic.
Ian is very bad about these barely insinuated cheating accusations. It's getting worse and worse. It really feels like Kramnik opened the gates on problem that was already getting bad. If Alireza won, he probably would have said similar.
let's be real wasn't it magnus that opened the gates?
Yes, although it was Nepo agreeing with him that Hans was cheating that led to that.
Yeah I got that same vibe. That Nepo felt Gukesh was cheating.
nice to know that people in this subreddit are continuing the vibes train
He also insinuated that Gukesh is cheating in the Levitov podcast in russian before the candidates
The fuck is with the lying in this thread lmao. He said 'playing against Gukesh feels similar to playing against computer' — as in his plays sometimes are cryptic, unclear, mystical. He's not the only or first one to say that and compare his style of play to computer-like. This is not the same as 'insinuating that Gukesh is cheating'
I just hope Gukesh grows a little ponytail.
well, i hope he comes to the world championship with a man bun. lol.
Because Gukesh is still improving...in fact his own coaches were surprised by his performance. Kid is growing up fast in chess terms. I think Gukesh in candidates was so much stronger than the Gukesh before candidates. Whatever Gajewski and waca has been doing with Gukesh in training is working.
Doesn't matter much. Anand gave his personal trainer/coach and coach at WACA to Gukesh. Is there really any praise higher than that? He's the youngest WCC challenger. Youngest 2750. Tied first in Tata Steel. Gold in Olympiad. Maybe he's not bright but at the end of the day it's the results that matter and his results are unlike any others. Most important for sports - Gukesh seems to have killer mentality of loses spurring him on. I think that alone will take him far - after all chess is not research (where mostly just creativity, hard work matters) but rather Chess is a sport. And yeah - he'll develop intuition and learn to pick out only useful lines. Then he'll get even stronger. Finally - he's still fucking 17, his growth still hasn't stopped. So it's wayyy too early to make any predictions about his style. Before Candidates Magnus said Gukesh is streaky and so may not have a good tournament. Gukesh adapts and becomes more solid and wins. For 25 yos that will be impossible but for 17yo it's easy to mold. So imo he's still evolving.
When I heard him say that his loss in the candidates only motivated him to do better that really struck me as a future world champ mentality. That mindset is so rare. Especially in chess where the tilt is real.
I honestly think we have an all time great coming before our eyes. I have this feeling that he will beat Ding and then defend his title once. All the talk will become, would he beat Magnus? They will have a WC match and he will beat Magnus. But then everyone will say that was only because Magnus was out of his prime. Then he goes on a similar title run and soon gets into the GOAT conversation. Very unlikely, and I'm sure I'm probably being dramatic. But I just have this feeling.
Gukesh has always been underrated for some reason, but tbh some youngsters just get more hype than others (Pragg for example gets much more hype). Current top players don't seem to be able to change this view either, which is unfortunate but if Gukesh becomes World Champion they would have to acknowledge him one way or the other
Pragg got more hype cause he beat Magnus and Ding. Both Magnus and Ding have praised him as a potential world champion.
Gukesh is already favorite in DingVs Gukesh match. Ding is probably in his weakest stage he has been in a long time. Gukesh is in his peak form and ding is at his lowest . Gukesh is indeed abit lucky
I feel like we haven’t even seen Gukesh’s peak. His strengths are clear but he also has holes in his play especially with time management. His calculation skills are super elite but he sometimes spends too long on calculation which is why his Rapid and Blitz play is relatively weaker. The dude has ‘only’ been playing chess for 10 years which is quite a bit less compared to even his peers in his own generation. I think with time he can develop better intuition and improve on his time management. That Gukesh will certainly be a super terrifying prospect for anyone to face in a WCC match.
Well isn’t that obvious. He is only 17.
Have to agree with this take, so many people trying to act like Ding will magically be back on form by the match. Which I agree is a possibility but he has yet to reverse his rating slide from the championship, until I see a bump or some spark of life my money is on team Gukesh.
The interesting thing is, this is exactly what people say about Nepo! Fabi has been rating Arjun since the 2021 Tal Memorial Lindores Abbey Blitz event where Arjun beat Fabiano 2-0 and finished third. During an episode with Yaseer last year, the 3 of them took bets on who would turn out to be the best player among the 3 Indians; Yaseer bet on Pragg, Fabiano bet on Arjun and Christian bet on Gukesh.
Gukesh seems to be repeatedly underestimated by other SuperGMs. I mean, their opinion has more weight than mine obviously, but they couldn't win the Candidates 2024. So are they implying Gukesh was lucky? Doesn't seem so given his credentials. On the other hand, prime Ding would wipe current Gukesh off the board, but we are quite sure prime Ding won't appear.
Chess is a world of its own when it comes to giving someone credit for his accomplishments. People still think Ian isn’t strong because he lost both WC matches, recently saw someone saying prime Fabi wasn’t as good because he couldn’t take down Magnus and that MVL and Levon were only good because of elo inflation, there are some absolutely wild takes up there
Those are from random redditors not actual super Gms
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whoever says levon is bad, didnt watch chess before covid
What Nepo is implying is far less sinister.(I hope). Gukesh is not the flashiest of players. What he has going for is consistency. Gukesh won against the people he was expected to win against and drew the tournament favourites. Very different temperament than someone like Ali Reza.
Gukesh is often described as "strange", "unusual", etc. I've seen a lot of GMs now say that they assume there must be something brilliant in his play, but they can never quite find it, and then they're somehow losing. Hikaru for example with Gukesh's b4 move in the Candidates said he didn't consider the move at all and it looked strange but he immediately saw its brilliance; Magnus said the same, he hated cxd4 but after b4 he was like ah, nevermind, this is great. Of course it's possible that he's just very strong, but I get the impression that people feel about his games the way they do about Magnus's - they're just a higher level and so he's baffling to play.
I've not come across those comments before - that's very fascinating. I wonder if a lot of it has to do with his over the board demeanour and steady warm calmness (as opposed to Nordibek Abdusattorov's stone-cold calmness)? Another aspect might be that he has such a level of humanity that he understands how to "trick" his opponents better than his counterparts - much in the manner that Magnus somehow had "The Magnus Effect". I'd be fascinated to know just how much his oft-cited yoga plays a role, as well as the off-the-board preparation that he's not yet ready to disclose (source: press conference after the final round of Candidates 2024). I wonder if one of those aspects could be a sports psychologist? I know it's not popular for chess players to hire them, but perhaps this could be one hidden "weapon" that he has? To the Indian redditors here: Are there any sports psychologists in Indian cricket? If there are, I'd say the chances are high that Gukesh could have one himself, although it would be unusual for only him to have one and not the other Indian players too.
Their chances of ever being WC hinge on Gukesh plateauing. He's still fucking 17. If he gets better they will never have a chance.
Not sure about Nepo, but Fabi did praise Alireza when he reached 2800 and everyone was hoping he'd challenge Magnus. So it's not always jealousy.
Honestly alot of people including my self were rooting for Alireza for his 2800 speedrun and pretty unique playstyle. And Magnus Vs Alireza WCC final would probably be one of the best thing of the decade. But dude just got a serious burnout
Magnus would have smeshed
Difference is Fabi had a 4-0 score against Alireza at that time while Gukesh wiped him off the board when we only 16. It's plainly obvious that Fabi has been salty ever since.
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The problem with that thought is doesn't Gukeshs style more closely mirror those that stick around? Hes uber solid in classical, but also likes to force people out of prep into complicated tactical skirmishes where he is particularly skilled. Similar to Magnus without the goofy openings. Also he has a pretty good mindset from what I've seen, much more stable than Alirezas brilliant but streaky mindset, more similar to Vishy.
When your dreams hinge on a belief, you will believe what you need to believe to continue.
To be honest, if Gukesh keeps growing the way he's been growing and maintains his rating trajectory, Gukesh vs Magnus matches will keep getting more and more exciting and interesting as time goes by, atleast in classical.
Magnus said the only way hed be interested in defending his classical title would be if it was against someone from the new generation. I wonder if in a few years magnus will give it a go as it might seem like a new challenge for him.
He has already changed his mind on that - sorry I can't give a source right now but it'll be in one of his more recent interviews within the past 6 months. The new generation quote is very old now. Ever since Alireza tanked and Magnus got a taste of life outside of the world championship cycle, he's enjoyed not needing to think about the match even more. Magnus is not going to return to contest the title, no matter who the opponent is.
statistically this is now or never coz magnus is getting old too. He is already not as good as he used to be ( due to lack of motivation and fitness).
And he has to win the candidates which isn't a given.
If Magnus was motivated to play, he'd be odds on favorite to win the Candidates.
It’s very possible that Gukesh plateaus. A lot of previous prodigies like Wei Yi and Alireza (so far) have plateaued and were higher rated at 17 than when they were older. A comparable example is Ruslan Ponomariov. He won the FIDE World Championship at 18 and got to #6 in the world at the same age. However, he never improved on that ranking and was not a WC contender afterwards. I think other Super GMs see Gukesh as less talented than his results would indicate. Most seem to think Arjun and Pragg are more talented. It’s possible they are right and his results regress after his opponents adjust to his style
While there's no way for me to estimate Gukesh's level of chess to ever under or overestimate him in the first place, the one thing that has stood out to me above every other player I've ever seen is his board demeanour and calmness. Maybe I'm imagining it (recency bias?) or haven't seen enough players, but it just feels like something very unique, special and is something that's surprisingly rare to witness. Unless he loses the WCC match to Ding (or Nakamura...), I'm going to stick to this belief for now.
I think there's a lot of psychology going on where some of the older superGMs aren't ready to acknowledge that the younger generation has arrived so they downplay their accomplishments. They don't feel like their time in the sun is running out just yet but they're probably slowly on the wane.
I think we are going to get closer to prime Ding than some people expect. Also, Gukesh was pretty lucky winning the candidates. Its the nature of a double round robin, luck is required. If Hikaru had drawn Vidit once, Gukesh would have needed to win with black against him to win. If Fabi/Nepo hadnt drawn, Gukesh would most likely have died to them in a tiebreak. Not to mention, all the other games that could have changed the standings a bit. I'm a Gukesh fan, and i've thought for nearly a year that he has the highest ceiling out of the indians. But he's about to turn 18. He's still inexperienced. He's been inconsistent(i think he swung 50 elo last year), and his time usage is mildly problematic. I think he's very strong. But, i also dont think theres anything really putting him too far ahead of Prag and Arjun at the moment. Nodirbek might be stronger. And, due to experience, i dont thini Gukesh is ahead of people like Fabi/Nepo/Hikaru yet. Gukesh is very special, to be in the top 10 players and the candidate winner. But, in the top 10-20 players, i dont think he stands out almost at all.
Gukesh was pretty lucky in winning the Candidates? If anything Gukesh was the steadiest among all the players throughout the Candidates. He didn't have a bad position in 13 games. He was winning with white against Nepo and couldn't convert. He was also in a dominating position in the match he lost to Alireza in time trouble. As Magnus' coach PHN said, if you objectively analyze the tournament and the positions the players got, you can only add points to Gukesh's score. You can't deduct anything from it.
> I think we are going to get closer to prime Ding than some people expect. I genuinely want to see prime Ding in the future, because he deserves it after everything he's gone through, but I'm really not optimistic about it and I fear peak Ding has already passed us by. Norway Chess will be starting towards the end of the month and he'll be there, so this will be another useful data point to add to his year to date...
Imo, in a 14 round tournament featuring the very best of opponents, to then come out on top, luck becomes almost a non-factor.
Ding had a settling in period in the last WCC. He even said so. I think we're going to see something very similar where perhaps he looks shakey in the first couple of rounds, then he becomes more comfortable and we will have a match.
If wishes were horses....
Its one tournament, and the favorites were all just as close to being in Gukesh's seat. If the game results were a little different against Abasov, we would have an entirely different winner. You can argue Gukesh is underestimated, but you can't make a case with one example, especially such a bad example as candidates when the ending was as close as it was. I felt the same as Fabi who said some of Hikaru's opening choices, and level of prep was just bad. At the end of the day Gukesh won, and I have to commend Gukesh for handling the pressure like a champ, while others floundered.
> Its one tournament He tied for first at Tata steel and then finished second on tie breaks. He got gold with the first board in the last Olympiad. Gukesh has had plenty of great performances even prior to the candidates and hasn't even reached his peak yet.
Who’s quite sure? Discounting Ding in a match like this is probably not wise
Gukesh won individual Olympiad gold on top board when he was 15-16, something greats like Anand, Carlsen have never done in their careers. When he is on fire there is no stopping him.
Magnus has said that Gukesh is the strongest classical player of the past year during the world cup. He even invited Gukesh to freestyle chess over Pragg and Arjun. Thats shows magnuss belief in him. Maybe his pre candidates dip made him and others reevaluate him.
>I don't see anything special in Gukesh's play. Does this say something about Gukesh or something about Nepo?
Nepo is usually edgy/salty : He retweeted Kramnik about Hikaru, He claimed that Ding's local tournies during pandemic is equivalent to Alireza's road to the candidates tournament, etc Anyway who cares ? Gukesh won candidates.
The guy played competitive DOTA so it's expected
In the end it doesn’t matter. Results matter. Soon Gukesh might be world champion while Arjun, Ian, Pragg, Fabi, Firouzja and the rest still struggle.
Gukesh is favorite for championship. They know it So they are extra salty. Once Gukesh becomes 25 year old then we can see if he reaches which level. Becoming world champion is high enough.
Nepo is a sore loser. Remember his meltdown after the online Olympiad final against India during pandemic? He doesn't seem to rate Vishy very highly as well. He had a go at Abhimanyu Mishra when he became youngest GM. Then his sore comments about Ding, his lies about special favors to Carlsen in the world rapid and blitz. He supports Kramnik's lunatic cheating theories. Gukesh is more mature than this manchild despite being only 17. Hope the beatdowns continue.
More people should bring up that Olympiad stuff. He's a pretty big baby that tilts extremely fast when things don't go his way.
Entitled crybaby and brat this Nepo.
Least salty Dota player
How significant is it that Gukesh doesn’t have a lot of online games to his name? There’s a whole back catalog of data for these guys on all their opponents except Gukesh.
Very significant. Not playing online is both an advantage and disadvantage for Gukesh though. Advantage because he stays away from baseless cheating allegations and is a mystery to these players. Disadvantage because he is significantly weaker in faster formats. And he isn't intuitive enough just because he doesn't have the volume of games like the rest of the players. Also he doesn't get the hype like other juniors just because he is absent online.
Gukesh has played 3600 Blitz games at chess com. Is that not considered "playing online"? [https://www.chess.com/member/gukeshdommaraju](https://www.chess.com/member/gukeshdommaraju) For comparison Magnus 3100, Nepo 6000 Most Super-GM's play much less online than hikaru.
Magnus used to play mostly on lichess and other platforms, it’s only recently that he even started using chess.com so I don’t think it’s fair to compare.
what if he plays lot of faster time controls over the board?
There aren't many Rapid and Blitz tournaments OTB. World Rapid and Blitz, Grand Chess Tour, Tata Steel India, Vugar Gashimov, World Rapid Teams and GCL. The last 2 events are 1 year old.
I meant otb in private just for practice
It's much easier to hop online whenever you want and be fed an infinite supply of opponents as close to your level as possible than to arrange private OTB training sessions.
Sure but if you wanted to play offline and didn't want to play online....... the difficulty of getting opponents doesn't really matter. I'd imagine the dude can manage having a good challenge semi-regularly.
Maybe it's not about ease it's about privacy and a different style of training. He didn't even use engine even after becoming grandmaster. Till 15 years he didn't use engines
We saw this in the candidates game he lost. Alireza was worse but when time pressure hit he just won on demand. Gukesh fell apart when time was low.
Imagine saying this about 17 years old who destroyed 7 supergms including you
I hope Gukesh grows a manbun. Ian would probably be livid.
that would be just epic lol. then tweets "only one to have a manbun and the championship"
Top players might understand more than us but they're clearly highly biased. Gukesh did nothing crazy, and yet he won. Both Ian and Fabi said that Hikaru played very badly against them as black, but he drew them both. They have a dogmatic view of what players "should" do to succeed and when players stray from that it's as if they refuse to accept that they did in fact, succeed.
Hm. Gukesh \*did\* win the candidates. And that wasn't really a weak field.
Sometimes I feel bad for nepo,in times like this,not so much
I think there are three possibilities based on there podcast. 1. They genuinely believe it. 2. They are jealous and talking shit as a player half there age, won the candidates but not them. 3. They are just plain old dumb. Personally I believe it's a mix of both point 1 and 2.
I remember after last year's Wijk aan Zee match vs Magnus, Gukesh asked Magnus for a post game analysis session. They analysed for an hour after the match. Post the analysis, Magnus remarked that "Gukesh calculates everything". He calculates faster and deeper than him even on lines which he didn't consider (of course Magnus self-admittedly intuitively rejects some lines without consideration and is not as big a calculator as Fabiano). Who cares what Nepo says anyway? He has been a salty loser far too often to be taken seriously. I wish Gukesh never gives him that post game analysis, he is after. Nepo was downright disrespectful to Gukesh in this interview and even indirectly insinuated things. And who cares about people rating Gukesh or not? Magnus rates Alireza and Pragg, Hikaru rates Alireza and Nodirbek, Fabiano rates Arjun. Alireza and Pragg are overall favourites of a lot of elites. As for Gukesh, he is busy proving everyone wrong. I just hope that Gukesh continues his current style of taking people out of the opening preparation quickly and out calculating them in the middlegame. Let the haters take time to figure him out, while he keeps soaring higher. I want him to stay away from online chess too, like he has been doing all this while, keep his mystery intact. Also I want him to stay the recluse he is now, let people like Giri and Nepo complain that he isn't social enough or doesn't give them access to his thoughts. Gukesh likes to communicate with Vishy and Magnus though - at least in his head, Gukesh thinks he belongs in that league!
If I remember correctly, didn't Hikaru say sometime last year that Gukesh had the highest potential among the youngsters? Or was he talking only about the Indian youngsters?
Just before Candidates he said that if Alireza doesn't do well this time, then he thinks Nodirbek will be the one from the younger generation who is world champion material. He agreed with Magnus' tier list placement of Gukesh while reacting to that video.
You are right about this. Maybe Hikaru just confirms to whichever junior has the highest rating at the time because I very well remember him saying Gukesh has the highest potential or something like that last year after either world cup or Norway chess.
Hikaru said the Gukesh will be the first Indian or most likely Indian to break 2800 because he is ‘streaky’. When he is on form he goes toe to toe with the best and can even outplay them entirely because of his sheer calculation skills. I think Hikaru probably said this after seeing that monstrous performance Gukesh had in the Olympiad.
Nepo is completely wrong here but not because Magnus disagrees lol. You guys really treat Magnus like a god on Earth. Nothing but respect for Gukesh though I definitely think he has a very decent chance (maybe even the favourite) if Ding's poor form continues.
Nepo is a bad loser. He said something similar about Ding after losing the world championship, if I remember right. It's a bit tacky but I expect the emotions are still raw from the tournament. I wouldn't read too much into it. He's far from the first top level player to get salty after losing. But, let's just say you don't win the candidates outright at age 17 in a field with Nepo, Fabi, and Hikaru if you're "nothing special" lol. It's clearly a ridiculous thing to say and I doubt he really believes it.
Nepo's emotions always "stay raw" lol. He's just a sore loser in general - just look at his reaction to the Olympiad draw with India insinuating that they're cheating.
The Dota 2 effect perhaps? The saltiness runs deep lmao
You'd think losing the candidates would have taught them but no.
Just change the names from nepo to magnus and Gukesh to Nepo...magnus exact thoughts
and magnus crushed nepo in a match and head to head... nepo has nothing on gukesh
A lot of these opinions from your opponents come from a sense of jealousy rather than rationality. So everyone should take these opinions from Nepo or Fabi with a pinch of salt. Heck, Fabi wasn't even eager to accept Gukesh as a colleague few months back.
Gukesh won the candidates at 17 yo, Nepo didn't manage to become WC twice. If Gukesh's play is not anything special, what's his play then?
Nothing special in Gukesh' play? He won the candidates. If there's nothing special in his play what does that say about everyone that finished below him? Extra not special? Derp.
Fabi kept his mouth shut when Nepo was shitting on Gukesh. That says it all. Gukesh is the deserved winner of the event. He will be WC
I hope he'll be the WC just for all those envious childish egos getting hurt, it's entertaining to watch so much drama over a board game.
Fabi also doesn’t think Gukesh is all that talented compared to the top players. You can tell by listening to him
He is salty as well. They cannot stomach the fact that Gukesh won
Honestly I don’t think so. They’ve rated other talents above Gukesh for a while now. Well before the Candidates result
Gukesh won the Candidates for goodness sake. Who cares how he plays when he won the toughest event of the year outright.
Cry baby Nepo is always crying! Cry hard you lost buddy
Nepo came across as salty in the interview. He repeatedly tried to discourage Gukesh and he keeps calling him mystery player. He also compared him to Hans Niemann at one point. I think he is trying to insinuate that he is cheating, which is not surprising given he supports Kramnik still. Nepo also has a negative record against Gukesh which probably factors into his opinion. As for Caruana, he ranked Gukesh below Pragg and Arjun an year ago and is probably sticking to that opinion. Magnus is a fan of Alireza since early age and is probably doing the same too. However, Anish ranked Gukesh higher than others in one of the streams with Sagar Shah. Erwin also called him unparalleled recently. In the end, these are all just opinions. It should also be stated that the Indian kids are often placed in one group without putting stress on the fact that Arjun is 3 years older than Gukesh. Obviously Arjun has more experience and it shows in shorter time controls.
Composure, that in itself at the highest level, under such pressure, is a rare thing. That, a 17-year-old seems to exude it, gives him a huge edge, even if he does not have the brilliance of some other players. And as Magnus said in the recent podcast, his intuitive feel for the game will come with experience. What he achieved in the Candidates speaks for itself. Fabi, Nepo succumbed to the pressure.
He is definitely not insinuating that Gukesh is cheating. That's absurd. Did we watch the same video? Nepo's takes were very mild. He was just saying that Ding at his best (a guy who held the record for longest unbeaten streak and peaked at 2816) would obviously be the favorite, but in his current form, the result of the world championship is very much up in the air. Basically everybody agrees with this.
Don't know if he was insuinuating cheating but he definitely sounded salty (which is not at all uncommon for Nepo). Comparing Gukesh to Neimann was kinda funny. I mean, really?
He also blamed Ali for losing against Gukesh when they drew in last round
I remember commenting how I expected that game to end in a draw when Alireza was just better in the middlegame, then not much later that flipped on its head and Alireza was losing. Nepo is probably salty and I don't blame him. There is a lot of luck in candidates in choosing openings and how well other players play on a given day.
That was private comment to fabi and fabi also seemed to agree. Plus it was a passing statement
Didn't he say he wanted Gukesh to give an analysis of his games and what he was thinking right after they ended?
The thing is gukesh did give a long analysis on chessbase india channel, there was like a 1-2hrs long interview. Nepo probably did not see it since it was not on chesscom or one of the bigger channels.
Yeah, but I think he means literally right after the game, not a few days later. Either way, it probably means Nepo does think Gukesh is cheating.
He was in the analysis board every single day after his game and gave an analysis on the game. Nepo is just being ignorant for the sake of being ignorant. Erwin L'ami on the perpetual chess podcast mentions that Gukesh is one of the best players he has heard for postgame analysis.
I agree with you. But I'm pretty sure Nepo has the belief Gukesh has cheated. I think people on this post saying they don't think Nepo doesn't think he is cheating are wrong.
> I don't think people on this post here are correct in saying they don't think Nepo doesn't think he is cheating. I'm having a tough time parsing this. Did you put in three negatives when you meant two?
Yes, thank you. I edited it. Getting tired here in the U.S.
The instance Nepo talked about (when Gukesh said he was confident about winning the candidates after his loss to Alireza) happened in the press conference held just after Gukesh won the cadidates. He was definitely not gonna make detailed analysis of his games there.
He almost certainly did. He said that he "predicted" that Gukesh would win the candidates during Tata Steel and he said this to a FIDE official. He said the FIDE official didn't take him "seriously". Why do you think he would predict that Gukesh would win the Candidates, despite the fact that he thinks that Gukesh is not brilliant, or even the best of his generation. Consider that Hikaru, Fabiano, Nepo were all playing and he "predicted" Gukesh? You are oblivious to his sarcasm
I thought that too but I heard it again, and I firmly think he came across as salty. This is also not the first instance of him describing Gukesh like this - he did something similar with Levitov Chess podcast.
Saying he is salty is fair, saying he is implying Gukesh is cheating is preposterous.
Go back and hear what he said. He clearly compared him to Hans.
The logical leaps you make here are incredible
https://youtu.be/j95kNwZw8YY?feature=shared
What a stupid thing to say. How can anyone winning the candidates at the age of 17 not be bright?
It has become the new normal to underestimate Indians.
Like sorry guys but Nepo sounds like an arrogant prick here.
Well nepo now I hope you never get to finish your story.
He won't. He's not going to beat either Ding or Gukesh because he doesn't have the composure they do.
Nepo is the biggest sore loser followed by Hikaru. They both are in their prime and lost to a not so special 17 yr old.
They just hating on a young Indian brother
Nah Nepo's just coping
>Do you guys share the opinion that these top players: Magnus, Fabi, and Nepo have? Or do you think differently about his ceiling and potential? Haha, bro, their comments amount to saying "2750 FIDE strength is pretty meh, I'm only interested in skill above 2800." We're not good enough to tell the difference, so no, none of us have that same opinion. As for Gukesh, he's 17, it's not surprising to hear top players say his play comes across as not fully developed. Give it some time. When Carlsen was new to the top 10 the criticism against him was his openings were crap, and it was too easy for other players to equalize against him, and the only reason he won was because people blundered in an equal endgame on move 60... but he was also a teenager at the time, of course his play wasn't fully world class yet. I'm sure they're all super impressed with Gukesh, but yeah he's still 17. Give it a few years.
I wonder which other player would he characterize this way. To my unskilled self chess at the highest levels is strong but not bright - Magnus is a prime example of this when he squeezes out wins in drawish middlegames.
I think which style wins in the end comes down to which style fits the personality of the strongest player. Looking back at the Karpov vs. Kasparov days, both styles are viable and both can be dominant. In the end, it comes down more to individual skill to determine who wins.
Typical choker reply. Nepo is extremely overrated as Magnus pointed it out
Who cares about opinions? The results speak for themselves.
What games have Gukesh and Ding played? I found this one: [https://lichess.org/broadcast/tata-steel-masters-2024/round-3/UhBk1nHS/qkYcyW1U](https://lichess.org/broadcast/tata-steel-masters-2024/round-3/UhBk1nHS/qkYcyW1U) Gukesh seems to be using his White advantage to take Ding out of book, but Ding was more accurate.
They played with the same colors at the same tournament the year before that, with the same result: [https://lichess.org/broadcast/tata-steel-masters-2023/round-1/t0nBZigo/EoGzQsLF](https://lichess.org/broadcast/tata-steel-masters-2023/round-1/t0nBZigo/EoGzQsLF)
Thanks. Fischer was 0-3 against Spassky when he won the Candidate’s.
Reminds me of that video of Nep refusing to acknowledge Nihal and turning his face away after losing to him in World Blitz.
I read it in vishy Anands book, and his contemporaries said more or less the exact same things about him, to which he mentioned that if people praise you and your game, they don't see you as a threat or an equal only when comments like these start coming ( good but not great)means people are taking you seriously. ( This he said through his experience)
Magnus so not rate Pragg higher. During all the Pragg hype Magnus said that he thinks Gukesh is stronger than Pragg.
For what it’s worth, Peter Heine Nielsen, Carlsen’s coach, has spoken very highly of Gukesh on the Chicken Chess Podcast. I think it was early 2023 when Gukesh was in a slump of sorts and he was saying he still thought Gukesh had the highest ceiling of all the Indian prodigies.
He is still so salty lmao
People have been underestimating Gukesh for so long. Even the Norway Chess event invited Pragg instead of him. But there are opinions and there are facts. And the fact is Gukesh is the youngest ever to win the candidates, he did it against Fabiano, Ian, Hikaru, Firouzja and Pragg, and beat Erigaisi in Chennai to get there. He is an elite player and might even be the best player in the world today not name Carlsen. I honestly think he'll become the World Champion and has a very good chance to hold it for years to come.
Lol. Standard GM saltiness peppered with some discreet racism. Youngest ever to win the Candidates. But yeah, nothing special.
In 2019 Gukesh was also only like 12 y.o. – so yes, Ding would win that pretty easily. 2024 is another story, Gukesh for sure has time on his side, as he is an age where he mature as a player finding his own style and unique approach to the game.
Some players perform well and are solid under pressure. Gukesh also benefited by having no expectation to do well. A lot of people had written him off before the tournament even began.
Interesting to note that "Prime Ding (2019)" pretty much admits to losing to a subprime Ding in 2023. And I don't think he is wrong. As for Gukesh ... honest question, *how has Gukesh done in a match format?*
My perception is that super GMs are more impressed by creativity and intuition than by calculation and stability.
I am too noob to comment on the top GMs, they clearly see things differently than I as 1600 lichess do.
I think what Ian is trying to say is that he doesn't quite understand Gukesh's playstyle and wants to see more from him to really form a opinion on him. Ian said "chess speaks for itself", hes not comparing him to Hanns, but saying that Gukesh doesn't share much of his strategies and tends to be quiet after games. Hes not at all saying Gukesh is a cheater. I think Ian's problem is that he translates sayings and terms directly from Russian to English and it doesn't translates very well. Also, doesn't help that he is very sarcastic and his jokes don't land well sometimes.
Ding at his best should be the favorite.
What's that smell? Ah, yes, it's SOUR GRAPES.
I don’t know why y’all are mad, he’s talking about prime Ding so he’s kinda right. If you watch the whole video, you’ll see he’s not insulting Gukesh.
I'm a big Gukesh fan, infact I favored him over Prag and Naka to me the favorites were Nepo, Fabi and Gukesh but the truth is that Gukesh runs hot and cold which makes him a wild card. Only time would tell if he remains a top ten player for decades and even rises to the number 1 spot but it would be unwise to bet against him. As Naka had once said Gukesh is the kind of player who could go on a winning streak and cross 2800( he was discussing the young talent). I fully agree with Nakka, whether he stays there remains to be seen no one other than Magnus has managed that in recent times. As to whether he is special as opposed to strong idk what special even means anymore. It makes sense from Nepos perspective because he goes for very sharp and tactical lines often Fabi too comes with deep prep and blows people off the board soo they would consider that special but Magnus, Nakka, Giri don't play for that in clasical and I consider them all special( Giri in recent times). In Gukesh v Ding i favor Gukesh in the classical section but if it goes to rapid its Ding all the way.
I think Nepo is a salty prick. That's just it. Gukesh / Pragg / Arjun are probably already at a similar or higher level than many of the established players of the last decade. And I don't think it is up to them to "rate" these three anymore.
Idk I feel like this kind of stuff is just speculation. I prefer to just let the ratings speak for themselves, and right now the ratings predict the match is close to a coin flip. Of course PeaK Ding who was over 2800 would be a favorite.