Produced by: Manoj Kumar
While rivals’ pulses spike under fire, Gukesh clocks a monk-like 74 BPM—even in knife-edge endgames. Against Caruana’s 122 BPM, his cardiac calm was a silent checkmate.
Low on time? Gukesh levels up. Where others panic, he thrives—turning 30-second scrambles into clinics of clarity. Coaches call him “unrattleable,” and with reason.
Sport psychologist Paddy Upton compares his temperament to Virat Kohli’s—clutch under pressure, unfazed by expectation, and always on when the moment demands it.
Magnus Carlsen himself admits: “He calculates deeper than most.” Gukesh doesn’t just find good moves—he finds moves no one else even sees. That’s elite vision.
What makes him deadly? No rearview mirror. Gukesh doesn’t linger on past blunders or future rewards—he’s all in on this move, this moment, every single time.
In time trouble, many collapse. Gukesh sharpens. His uncanny ability to calculate under pressure has earned him a nickname among peers: “The Endgame Surgeon.”
Viswanathan Anand praises his planning under pressure as “well beyond his years.” In positions where others stall, Gukesh is already three moves ahead—and still calm.
While most grandmasters lean on intuition in rapid formats, Gukesh trusts cold, hard logic. In classical games, that makes him the most lethal calculator on the board.
He didn’t just inherit nerves of steel—he trained for them. With time scramble drills and adrenaline conditioning, Gukesh turned tension into his secret weapon.