3 min readBengaluruSep 11, 2026 09:26 AM IST
Five-time World Champion Magnus Carlsen has reiterated his stance on the upcoming World Chess Championship, calling India’s D Gukesh the underdog and Uzbek challenger Javokhir Sindarov the clear favourite.
“As it stands, there’s no question that Sindarov is the favourite,” Carlsen said during the ongoing Global Chess League in Bengaluru.
“Chess is a highly psychological game, so it probably won’t take a lot to place some doubts in Sindarov’s mind and some confidence in Gukesh,” he added.
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Carlsen believes Gukesh has proven his ceiling is on par with or even better than Sindarov’s, calling it an interesting challenge for the Indian to get back to the level that made him the youngest world champion in history.
“The word ‘defend’ is really not a good place to begin. In terms of how Gukesh has played for the last couple of years, he should not be in a position where he has to defend anything. He should be in a position where he has everything to gain.”
“He showed 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 will do it now, but it’s even more of an interesting challenge for him to try and get back to that,” he said.
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Earlier, Carlsen praised Sindarov as a well-rounded player with no apparent weaknesses. “He’s very well rounded, doesn’t have any obvious weaknesses,” he had said.
Carlsen also stressed that Gukesh must take the initiative from the start to keep Sindarov on the back foot.
“If Sindarov is ahead early on, it’s probably very, very bad news for Gukesh. If Gukesh is ahead early on, he automatically becomes a significant favourite. That’s how these matches work.”
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The Norwegian, who has long criticised the one-on-one format for determining the world’s best, added that even a non-favourite would rarely lose by more than one or two points.
“The thing about World Championship matches, and one of the reasons I believe it’s an extraordinarily bad way to determine the best player in the world, is that you play Classical, which is the most egalitarian format, and you don’t play a ton of games. It means that even if you think it’s 80-20 before the match, the likelihood is still very high that it’s going to be a one or two-point match, because chess is such a drawish game,” he said.