3 min readApr 22, 2026 08:52 PM IST
With Javokir Sindarov punching his ticket to face D Gukesh in a world championship match after the Uzbek won the Candidates, experts have been predicting what will happen when the two face each other at the end of the year. While 5-time World Champion Magnus Carlsen gave the edge to Sindarov, Fabiano Caruana said that the match will be pretty close with the Uzbekistan native holding a slight advantage.
With the Indian world champion not in the best of forms, the odds are stack against him against Sindarov who bludgeoned through the opposition at the Candidates. Caruana, however, said that it wouldn’t be smart to write the 19-year-old off.
“It’s very easy to just say Sindarov is going to win, but Gukesh has had tournaments like this—the Olympiad, the Candidates, he’s won tournaments! Do we really assume that a 19-year-old is just done? Like he had a bad period and he’s just finished? I see no reason why Gukesh cannot recover and then the question is, ‘Is Sindarov going to be in as good form as here?’ If he is, then yeah, probably nobody’s stopping him,” he said on the C-Squared podcast.
“So I’m predicting a close match, actually pretty close to balanced. Gukesh also has experience, he’ll prepare, he’ll think about his approach. If he doesn’t get too unconfident… It’ll be good for him to have some good results at some point, that’ll give him some confidence. We’ll see Sindarov’s form in the Grand Chess Tour, since he’s playing that. It’s very ironic that he replaced Gukesh in the Grand Chess Tour. I don’t know if it was a good decision by Gukesh, but we’ll see. Prediction is slight money on Sindarov, maybe 55-45,” he added.
Lat week, Carlsen, a five-time world champion, lost to the Indian teenager famously at last year’s Candidates tournament, which led to him infamously smashing his fist on the table. The 35-year-old said at the Chess Party in Stockholm, Sweden that while he knows anything can happen in a World Championship match, he backs Sindarov to prevail.
“At the moment its impossible not to say Sindarov but we know anything can happen in a World Championship match,” said Carlsen responding to a question about who will win the upcoming World Chess Championship. “I am first of all really curious as to what Sindarov will do in the next few months because he is very different from Gukesh. In the sense that Gukesh has very obvious weaknesses when it comes to his understanding and Sindarov does not. He is a lot more well-rounded so, we’ll see,” said Carlsen.
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