World Chess Weekly: Strongest Uzbek Masters Line-Up Yet Plus Legend's Sage Advice To Gukesh
The India-Uzbekistan chess rivalry is not going away any time soon. Later this year chess fans have the mouth-watering prospect of a World Chess Championship featuring those two nations to look forward to.
Hot off the heels of a dramatic FIDE Candidates Tournament, the build-up is already well under way and bubbling nicely.
Without a doubt, the clash between the newly-installed challenger GM Javkohir Sindarov and India's reigning champ GM Gukesh D this November/December is going to generate a ton of intrigue and excitement.
Giving a flavour of how important this is, earlier this week the victorious Sindarov was given a hero's welcome on his return to Tashkent where he was where he was met at the airport by Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov. Sindarov has made his nation proud, again.
While Sindarov has shined, Gukesh has been in, to put it bluntly, terrible form recently as evidenced by a series of poor performances. Last week he was in action in the Mediterranean, on the Spanish island of Menorca, where he finished fourth with 4.5 points at the Cerrado Chess Menorca Masters.
It's not exactly what chess fans expect from a world champion, and so this week GM Vishy Anand, the undisputed doyen of Indian chess, stepped in for a pep-talk.
Anand warned Gukesh he needs to improve before his title defence against Candidates winner Sindarov, or he'll lose it.
Anand's sage advice was to: "Lock yourself in a room, and then just ignore it, focusing on doing a good job in at least one tournament. If not this one, then the next, but you need to work towards something.
"Nothing answers doubts in you better than a good result. I think that’s what the attitude has to be."
Carlsen On Sindarov
Gukesh's chances are now being widely discussed.
At Sweden's annual Chessparty event held in Stockholm, the world number-one GM Magnus Carlsen gave his verdict.
"At the moment it’s impossible not to say Sindarov," he said. "We know anything can happen in a world championship match, but I'm first of all really, really curious as to what Sindarov can do in the next few months, because he’s very, very different from Gukesh in the sense that Gukesh has very, very obvious weaknesses when it comes to his understanding, and Sindarov does not in the same way. He’s a lot more well-rounded, so we'll see."
Uzbek On The Up
While India's greatest ever player dishes out advice to its current World Champion about facing an Uzbek, the chess superpower's big rival Uzbekistan goes from strength to strength.
Not only does Uzbekistan have two brilliant young players who seem to be winning event after event in the 20-year-old Sindarov and 21-year-old GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, the nascent chess nation also now has a bone fide super tournament on home soil.
This week the Uzbekistan Chess Federation (UCF) announced a stellar final line-up for its relatively new flagship event, the UzChess Cup Masters taking place in Tashkent this June.
The 10-player closed tournament, now on its third edition, has an average rating of 2712 FIDE, putting it right in the top bracket of elite events. Last year, it was won by the Indian GM Praggnanandhaa R. Running from June 7 to 15, it has a $121,500 prize fund.
Unsurprisingly, Uzbekistan's leading lights Sindarov and Abdusattorov take their places alongside two other home talents in GMs Nodirbek Yakubboev, who had an astonishing run to the semis at the 2025 FIDE World Cup, and former U14 World Youth Champion Shamsiddin Vokhidov.
But the rest of the line-up includes the Indian Super GMs Arjun Erigaisi and Vidit Gujrathi, Russian number-one Ian Nepomniachtchi, the American GM Hans Niemann, the Azeri GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and the final name added, Greek talent GM Nikolas Theodorou.
It is an impressive roster. But there's even more news from Uzbekistan.
The UCF has also announced its players will travel to Miami, Florida, for a rapid and blitz challenge match between Uzbekistan and the U.S. national teams on July 27 to 28. The event is organised with the U.S. Chess Federation.
And finally, it has been announced that the man of the moment Sindarov has been signed up by Team Vitality for money-spinning trip to the Esports World Cup in August.
In Riyadh, the Counter Strike fan Sindarov will challenge GM Magnus Carlsen for the esports chess title.
All this from a country that was once considered a chess backwater. It isn't now.