‘Speed ​​up your calculation’: D Gukesh advises ahead of World Chess Championship match against Javokhir Sindarov

D Gukesh (@FIDE_chess X Photo) NEW DELHI: World champion D Gukesh is gearing up to defend his title against Uzbekistan’s Javokhir Sindarov later this year and grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran believes the young Indian needs to polish some areas of his game to stay ahead. According to Sasikirana, Gukesh’s habit of creating highly complicated poses is dangerous but also often leads to time constraints.“Sometimes Gukesh takes too many risks with his unconventional play creating chaos and imbalance… in a sense he wants to let things go out of control, it doesn’t matter if the position is completely in chaos,” Sasikiran told PTI.“He’s a champion in this kind of game, but he often gets into time trouble. So one thing I’d suggest him focus on is speeding up the calculation, he definitely needs to speed it up because you don’t want to constantly be in a scenario where your opponent is running you into time trouble.”Former five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand also emphasized that thorough preparation and memorization is essential at the highest level. Gukesh has had mixed results since winning the world title, fighting in several major classical tournaments. Sasikiran said Gukesh should focus on putting opponents in uncomfortable situations and study Sindarov’s weaknesses thoroughly. He warned that the challenger is extremely well prepared and relies heavily on memory and quick play.“From what I saw from Sindarov, all this candidate stuff, he also makes some complications, he prepared very deeply for the candidates tournament. I mean very high level of chess, so this World Championship match will be very difficult,” he explained.He added that Gukesh needs to improve his conversion of technical positions and avoid missed chances. However, the Chennai-based grandmaster feels that experience could work in favor of the Indian.“But Gukesh has already been at that level, he has already played a World Cup match, so the experience of the match is in Gukesh’s favor, but the challenger also carries the momentum,” he added.Sasikiran believes that Gukesh and his team have already narrowed down a few opening choices and will continue to prepare till the start of the match.