On the day off following the 9th game of the World Chess Championship, Gukesh and Grzegorz Gajewski went on a beach vacation in Singapore. There a Polish coach and an Indian teenager saw several people trying to bungee jump. It was then that Gajewski had a Eureka moment.
“He said to me, ‘If you win the world championship, I will do bungee jumping.’ I personally am afraid of heights. So I don’t know why I said, ‘I’ll join you too,’” laughed Gukesh at the press conference after becoming the world champion.
Now that the agreement has been made, it must be respected. Come Saturday, both Gukesh and Gajewski will take turns defying gravity. As Gukesh says: “I’m looking forward to jumping off the bridge.”
Gajewski became Gukesh’s trusted sherpa as the young man reached the highest pinnacle of chess – becoming world champion. A partnership that took place in January 2023 when the two were brought together by Viswanathan Anand, who also relied on Gajewski as a second in many world championship fights.
In big-ticket events like the World Championship, a player has an entire team of seconds. Others are invited to training camps for specific roles, such as playing training games. Others help create a collection of opening ideas, which players can play on the board in games. Most of Gukesh’s team has been together since Gukesh was preparing for the Candidates competition in Toronto.
In the world championship, Gukesh was the best prepared fighter on the chess board. In almost every game, he managed to confuse Ding Liren in the first stage – where the impact of seconds is the biggest – forcing the now former world champion to burn time on the clock thinking of an answer.
Being a world champion, Gukesh revealed the names of his seconds. Besides Gajewski and psychologist Paddy Upton, there were five other grandmothers who helped Gukesh: Pentala Harikrishna, Radosław Wojtaszek (Poland), Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland), Jan Klimkowski (Poland) and Vincent Keymer (Germany). Anand was a mentor, always around for life advice when Gukesh needed it.
Gajewski broke down how the backroom gang helped Gukesh plan the overthrow of his chess empire.
The opening ideas for Gukesh’s plays came from four members: Harikrishna, Radek (Radosław Wojtaszek), Keymer and Gajewski. Harikrishna, Radek and Gajewski have been with the group since before Candidates. At the time, Klimkowski was also a member of the team helping the team with analytical work. Keymer was the last to join.
“With Vincent, we didn’t know what he would actually bring to the team. So we were taking some kind of risk. But it was rewarding because he brought a lot of interesting ideas,” Gajewski told the Indian Express.
Preparing for a time crisis
Jan-Krzysztof Duda – one of the best blitz players in the world – was brought on board to play “100 training games” against Gukesh. Also playing fast formats of games, so Gukesh is ready to think quickly in time crunch situations. In fact, Duda and Gukesh have been secretly playing these online training games against each other since April.
“You’re a team player! With a capital P. He is not like most of us who sit with engines. You can say, wake him up in the middle of the night, give him a place, he will just play. And he can play for hours.
“This allowed Gukesh to gain experience in the lines he had to play. But also to improve his playing skills in a very low time, which can be useful in times of difficulty. We wanted to make sure that when it comes to timing issues, Gukesh will not fail. “Although we were very focused on the opening, we did not forget about other things and other aspects of the game,” said Gajewski.
Between the Qualifiers in April and the World Championship, Team Gukesh had four training camps in Poland and India.
The Polish influence on the team is clearly respected by Gajewski, who has taken on the role played by Peter Heine Nielsen in Magnus Carlsen – “the middle boy who brings the whole team together”.
If you thought that being a contender for the throne of the world champion is difficult, free the thought for a few seconds.
“Basically it means that for three weeks, you don’t sleep more than six hours. Even though you can technically sleep more than six hours (on some days), you won’t sleep that long. There is a lot of pressure, a lot of work to be done. You have to stay alert,” Gajewski retreated.
The complexity of working on the toughest test in sport meant that the team had to work around the clock. That’s why the team chose Malaga, Spain as the base for the whole team, and Gajewski joined Gukesh from Singapore.
“When they went to sleep (in Spain), we woke up (in Singapore),” he said.
After all that grinding, Gajewski can sleep more than six hours now. But it’s the thought of jumping off the bridge on Saturday that keeps him from sleeping well.
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