Magnus Carlsen picked Sindarov as the favorite to beat Gukesh at the World Championship

World No.1 Magnus Carlsen sees challenger Javokhir Sindarov as the favorite to win the world championship, but said D Gukesh should not approach his upcoming title defense as a burden, insisting the reigning champion has “all he can get”.

Gukesh will face challenger Sindarov of Uzbekistan in the upcoming World Chess Championship to be held in Geneva, Switzerland from November 24 to December 12.

“I think the word defend is really not a good place to start because the way Gukesh has been playing the last couple of years, he shouldn’t be in a position where he has to defend anything. He should be in a position where he has everything he can get,” Carlsen said on the sidelines of the ongoing Global Chess League.

“He’s already shown in 2024 that when things click, he has the potential to play at an extremely high level. I don’t think a lot of people believe he’s going to do that now, but I think it’s an even more interesting challenge for him to try and get back to that.”

“Chess is a highly psychological game, so it probably won’t take much to potentially put some doubt in Sindarov’s mind and some confidence for Gukesh. Obviously, as things stand, there’s no doubt that Sindarov is the favorite,” he added.

Calrsen said Gukesh had to take the initiative from the start to keep Sindarov on the back foot.

“If Sindarov leads early, that’s probably very, very bad news for Gukesh. If Gukesh is ahead early, he automatically becomes a significant favorite. That’s how these matches work.”

Speaking about his personal career, Carlsen said that he now prefers rapid chess more than classical chess.

“I think in terms of their chess styles, the current generation, I don’t know if they’re making that decision consciously, but they’re certainly doing very well. In that sense, children’s chess is in very good hands.

“It depends on the tournament. To be honest, I was excited to experiment a bit here, and it’s certainly fun. I think it’s an important step for chess to rate slightly faster games like classical. We’ve long needed a more universal system for rating every tournament game. Attempts have been made, but classical has always been the gold standard,” he said.

“Any tournament that isn’t classically ranked for certain people matters less for that reason. I’m glad that Total Chess can be classically ranked as well as being a mix of formats that make it harder for people to master weaknesses,” he added.

Carlsen said that after becoming a father, he decided to do away with the classic format.

“I think after I also became a father, it made it even more certain for me that I would never go back to the classic World Cup.

“There are so many things I like about chess. There are a lot of tournaments that I like. The classics, especially the class tournaments are classics. Maybe not as a regular diet, but at least once in a while,” he said.

“It’s hard to imagine leaving competitive chess completely and not being good at it. That’s because I like it. I love it. My son is the greatest human being in the world. It’s fantastic. It’s a joy.”

– The end

Issued by:

Debodinna Chakraborty

Published on:

11 Sep 2026 12:46 IST