“I may be the world champion, but I’m not the best player in the world,” said Gukesh Dommaraju in Singapore last year, in among his first words after winning the World Championship. Now, almost a year later, Gukesh comes to Goa for the FIDE World Cup, to play his first event at home in India since becoming world champion. Has he made progress on that next ambition of becoming the best player in the world?
Just a cursory look at his results in 2025 would show simple answer to that question – no, he hasn’t. He began his year at the Tata Steel Masters in Wijk Aan Zee, where he only finished second to R Praggnanandhaa after tie-breaks. Since then, he finished ninth at the Superbet Chess Classic in Romania, an impressive second to Magnus Carlsen at the Norway Chess event, eighth at the Sinquefield Cup and a hugely disappointing 41st at the FIDE Grand Swiss, before winning gold on the top board at the European Club Championships.
He struggled in the Freestyle chess event at Weissenhauss, where he finished eighth. He’s done well in spurts in the quick time control events ,but has never really managed to find consistent good results in those either.
Is there a reason for Gukesh’s inconsistent results this year?
First of all, Gukesh might be the world champion, but he’s only 19. Inconsistencies in form are natural at that age for any sportsperson, particularly one for whom the competition is only the absolute elite of his sport. The outlier is Gukesh being world champion at his age, not that he’s going through a year with some inconsistency.
Additionally, his schedule throughout this year seems to have been designed to test himself and to get himself out of his comfort zone. He’s played different formats, different time controls, and recently, a couple of exhibition tournaments in the US as well, in the faster time controls. He has struggled to find rhythm in any format, as a result.
Gukesh, in multiple interactions with the media over the course of the World Championships last year, spoke of his love for chess, being unable to stay away from the sport, and how he was grateful for how much chess he indulged in during his preparation for the match.
So, the question when you see Gukesh’s results in all formats in 2025 is whether there’s merit in the decisions that his team and him have made this year.
When Gukesh became world champion, it was clear that his strengths lay in classical chess, and that he would need to become better in the faster time formats. This year, in the quest to expand his horizons, Gukesh’s classical chess has taken a hit, as results have shown. That performance at the Grand Swiss would’ve set the alarm bells ringing. He made mistakes that he wouldn’t usually make.
Hashis team found the reasons behind those? If they have, has he had time to work on it, in between the Grand Swiss and the World Cup? He played exhibition tournaments in the US in that gap, so there’s a question mark on whether he has time to train with his coach Grzegorz Gajewski.
Can Gukesh turn it around at the World Cup?
One of those exhibition tournaments, the Clutch Chess Championship – which an 18-round rapid tournament between him, Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura – just finished on Wednesday. Gukesh finished fourth, but he called that tournament the best possible training camp he could’ve had before the World Cup.
That’s a fascinating perspective, but one can see the logic behind that. How often does one get to play against three of the best players in the world anyway?
The Versace chess squad is here! ��
Magnus, Hikaru, Fabiano, and Gukesh are ready to fight in the Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown!
Photo by Lennart Ootes/St Louis Chess Club #clutchchess #chess #magnuscarlsen #gukesh pic.twitter.com/mvkCFWlDvQ– Saint Louis Chess Club (@STLChessClub) October 26, 2025
So now, Gukesh comes into a home World Cup as the top seed by virtue of being world champion, but only the sixth-highest rated player in the field. Gukesh hasn’t beaten Praggnanandhaa or Arjun Erigaisi in a game of classical chess this year, but he has beaten Anish Giri and Vincent Keymer too, who have both been in great form this year. And even though he only finished fourth in the Clutch Chess exhibition, he managed to beat Nakamura and Caruana in a couple of games as well, which is not an easy thing to do.
Gukesh is world champion, which is the only thing you need to know to say that he knows to handle the big occasions. The World Cup is one such as well, and he goes into it without any additional pressure of qualification spots hanging around his neck.
When he faces the likes of Praggnanandhaa, Erigaisi, Giri, and Keymer, there can be so little to choose between those players’ abilities that results can become a lottery. So, the first goal for Gukesh at the World Cup will be simple: If he is to be the best player in the world, he can’t afford to be losing many games to players rated 100 points lower than him, as he did at the Grand Swiss.
As India awaits its world champion in Goa over the course of November, he will look to bookend an underwhelming year with a high-profile triumph.
