Sports scientist Paddy Upton worked in Dommaraju Gukesh’s corner over the last leg of preparations before the 18-year-old Grandmaster faced off with Ding Liren for the FIDE World Championship 2024 at Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa where the India emerged as the world chess champion, telecomasia.net reports.
The former, a South African club cricketer and rugby player before branching into various facets of coaching, has helped other Indian sportspersons manage their minds, before earning the contract to work with the current chess champion. The Indian T20 World Cup 2024 squad, India men’s hockey squad for Olympics 2024 were two prominent team sports to associate with the 56-year-old recently in the ‘High Performance’ phase.
Upton had worked with cricket and rugby teams earlier in his career, hence team sports assignments were a familiar zone. Chess was new head space for him, besides the novelty of working with an exceptionally talented individual achiever and Gukesh’s team of seconds (chess players-cum-experts for technical aspects of chess preparation).
From the Indian Grandmaster’s side, the first approach was made by WestBridge Capital (the Bengaluru-based centre of excellence with former world champion Viswanathan Anand, is called the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy). The FIDE Candidates Championship was over in April 2024, the Indian won out of eight world’s best GMs to emerge as the challenger.
Gukesh outwitted the Chinese World Champion in 14 games to reach 7.5 points, the minimum criteria needed to be crowned world chess champion. Upton, talking to FIDE chess in Singapore, observed: “I believe not many chess players work with a mental coach, which I find interesting as the primary performance tool is the mind. We spoke probably about 50 hours, an hour and a half each day. Gukesh would discuss things he wanted to understand about his mind, both on the chess board and otherwise.”
The Indian had made his first-ever World Championship final entry, after winning the Candidates on first try.
For Upton dealing with an elite chess player of Gukesh’s calibre and youth was an adventure into mental conditioning.
The hockey team had developed a bonding, learnt to adapt in changing match situations and overcame fear of failure during a boot camp devised by Horn, along snowy slopes in the Alps. Captained by Harmanpreet Singh and inspired by veteran goalkeeper P Sreejesh, India ended in third place and returned from Paris with a bronze around their necks. The chess contest was for the gold medal.
Upton banked on a concept he terms as “universally applicable” to put the Indian teenager on the winning road. The mind manager advises sporting performers to believe in “being yourself” and not get stressed.
Upton drove home a point, during his interaction with FIDE chess, asserting: “One of the biggest mistakes most athletes who arrive at the highest level, a World Championship or Olympic medal, is they feel the need to do something special because of the big moment.
“A lot of the preparation (mental) with Gukesh was that you don’t need to do anything special than what you did at the Candidates. It is about how you do the basics, play your best moves.
“The whole idea was to not try anything different, play as consistently as possible. We brought it down to two pages, telling him you are ready, you don’t need to even talk to me during those 14 games. We barely touched base, as he knew what is needed to be done game after game.”
https://www.telecomasia.net/blog/mind-manager-paddy-upton-for-chess-ace-gukesh-on-the-mark-again/
