D. Gukesh on Thursday said that he was “relieved” he was able to play “good chess” to win the Chennai Grand Masters Chess Championship after a “stressful” few months.
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“After the World Cup, things went horribly wrong. I was not in a good mental space. It was a new thing for me to handle this Candidates expectation and many different things.
“Till London (Chess Classic), I had very bad results, but I was more frustrated for not being able to play anywhere near to my level. So, finally, I’m very happy that this tournament went really well, and I could finally get the impression of what it feels like playing like myself,” he said after the final round.
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Gukesh said that the worry of losing rating points was also “playing on his mind constantly” during this phase.
“This probably was a phase that I felt at my lowest till now. But I think everyone needs to go through some phase like this to learn a few things. I’m sure it will help me a lot in the future. I’ll handle the challenges I’ll have in the future better.”
On guiding him through this phase, his coach Vishnu Prasanna said: “We both knew that something was really wrong. We just tried to get back to that original state. Trying to forget about qualification and focus on playing well and so on.
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“I knew what motivated him and what he really enjoys about chess. So, (I had to) just (make him) take his eye off the (Candidates) spot and focus on what’s interesting about chess to him.”
Besides thanking his coach, Gukesh also said he’s grateful to his second Grzegorz Gajewski.
“Gajewski has been working with me for the last one year. We are in touch every day, and he also believed in me even when I didn’t. Every single day, he was saying something to motivate me. During this (Chennai) tournament, he used to wake up at, like, 4 or 5 in the morning and work for me, prepare something for me.”