Bengaluru: Javokhir Sindarov is taking a less-travelled route to the World Championship match. While the months before a title match can often mean retreating into a preparation bunker, the 20-year-old Uzbek has kept himself in the thick of tournament action as he builds towards his showdown against Gukesh in November– the youngest World Championship match in history.
He has played five tournaments since May, with the Sinquefield Cup being the only classical event among them. The Global Chess League, which starts on September 5 in Bengaluru, is next. It will be followed by the Olympiad. He says the busy schedule is not draining him; if anything, it is helping a player who has only recently broken into the top tier get more comfortable playing elite opposition.
“I agree I’ve been playing a lot of tournaments, most of them Rapid and Blitz. The thing with Rapid and Blitz is I enjoy it; it doesn’t take up energy and I don’t feel pressure,” Sindarov told Hindustan Times in an interview. “I think it’s good for me to play classical tournaments because I only became a top chess player this year and I didn’t play any top chess events, apart from Tata Steel Chess and Candidates. After the Olympiad, I will join a training camp and start working really hard for the match.”
Unlike the World Cup and Candidates, which he has won, the World Championship is a starkly different challenge.
“You are playing 14 games against only one player. There are lot of little things to keep in mind. All these jobs I give to Roman (Vidonyak) and I follow what he says,” Sindarov says, breaking into a laugh. “My job is to only repeat my preparation, remember my opening lines and give my all during training camps.”
Are there markers that tell him he’s in peak form?
“When I don’t make any blunders, I know I’m in peak form. In the Candidates, for example, I didn’t make any big blunders. Another sign is when I calculate everything very well. After the games, I always go back to my room and check with the engine how I calculated the lines. If it’s good calculation, probably then I’m in really good chess form. You always feel you are in good shape, but peak form is really hard.”
In 2018, Sindarov broke Praggnanandhaa’s record by five days, becoming the second-youngest grandmaster in history. Soon another Indian came along.
“When Gukesh beat my record, I knew he’s going to be a strong player. I never predicted he would become world champion. To me, Gukesh’s best form was in the 2022 Olympiad, also the 2024 one too. He played very well in the Candidates but I don’t think it was his peak form. I was really impressed by his games from the Olympiad though. There is a lot to learn from them. The match will be very hard for both of us but I suppose it’s better when you’ve played a match at least once.”
Gukesh, though, has been struggling with his form and finished at the bottom in his last two classical tournament appearances: Norway Chess and Chennai Grand Masters. He showed a rare burst of emotion, celebrating his win against Sindarov in the GCT Super Rapid and Blitz in Warsaw in May, with a fist pump.
“When he has a bad tournament, everyone starts saying a lot of things about his chess. Maybe he really needed to do it so that before the match, he starts feeling a little bit confident. I’m also mentally very well prepared,” he said, “I grew up playing tournaments where my opponents were always doing this. I played a lot with Nodirbek (Abdusattorov) when we were young. In the Uzbekistan Championships, I would celebrate when he lost and he too would celebrate when I lost. So, for me, it’s normal.”
For Sindarov, even a World Championship build-up needs room for a little fun. He famously played Counter-Strike during the Candidates earlier this year, where he went on to win the tournament.
“If you are not enjoying, if you are playing stressful chess, it’s always very hard,” he said. “If I play one hour of Counter-Strike, I can play three hours of chess.”
He insists the downtime does not come at the expense of preparation.
“I’m preparing a lot before games. During games, I show a lot of good opening preparation, and it works.” Counter-Strike is his mainstay, but he also plays Belot, a Ukrainian-French card game, and FIFA.
Sindarov’s first memory of a World Championship match was the 2013 match between Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand. A Magnus fan then, he remembers worrying that the Norwegian might lose.
“Vishy was a very strong player,” he said.
Years later, after speaking to players who had faced Carlsen, Sindarov came to appreciate how dramatically the Norwegian had transformed between the Candidates and the World Championship.
“Magnus was a completely different guy after the London Candidates,” he says. “I think the young generation needs to learn a lot from these players.”
The World Championship isn’t his ultimate goal. “I think I’m becoming a strong chess player. I’m trying to stabilise my rating above 2750 and stay in the top 10. My goal is to become a 2800 player. Of course, the match is very important, but in general, I want to be the best chess player in the world.”