World Champion Gukesh 'not good’ at rapid, blitz or other formats aside from classical chess: Carlsen
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Magnus Carlsen may have just given a backhanded compliment to World Chess Champion D Gukesh. The World No. 1 chess player spoke about the young Indian star during his appearance on the famous Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
Carlsen referred to Gukesh while making a point about how top young players develop their skills in the game. He compared 21-year-old Iranian-French Grandmaster Alireza Firouzja with 18-year-old Indian GM Gukesh.
While Carlsen waxed lyrical about Firouzja, with whom he worked during a training camp some years ago, Gukesh wasn't shown much love. "He (Firouzja) basically became one of the best players in the world by constantly playing chess all the time and mostly like really quick games," said Carlen.
"...and then you have the current classical world champion from India, Gukesh. He doesn't play casual games at all. He just studies his a** off all the time," Carlen remarked about the Indian.
"He (Gukesh) is not good at rapid, he is not good at blitz, he is not good at other forms. But he has made all his studies about classical chess. He didn't even own a chess software on his computer before he was like 13, and he was like a grandmaster at that time."
According to the Norwegian Carlsen, Gukesh is not an intuitive player like Firouzja. "...from the way he studies, during games he is meticulous, he calculates. He sees every position as a problem he has to solve more than 'oh what does my intuition tell me'. For him it is like, 'this is possbile, this is possible, let me just try and see this all the way through'," Carlsen said about Gukesh.
Carlsen then made a sly remark by bringing up the fable of 'The Hare and The Tortoise'. "In certain situations, the tortoise will win, and in certain situations, the hare will win," said Carlsen with a wry smile.
Carlsen recently defeated Gukesh at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour at Weissenhaus in Germany. It was Carlsen's first meeting with Gukesh since the Indian became World Chess Champion in December.