Gajewski the 2nd with multiple roles

It was love at first sight. Outside the decked-up Capitol Theatre, the venue for the media day and Opening Ceremony ahead of the chess World Championship match between D Gukesh and Ding Liren, Viswanathan Anand was all smiles.

- SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN

He had just cracked this one-sentence response when he was asked why he recommended Grzegorz Gajewski to work exclusively with D Gukesh.

Gajewski, the Pole, is one of the few direct links between Anand, India's only world champion in the Classical format, and Gukesh, the teen who hopes to emulate Anand sometime over the next few weeks. When the Pole was working with a lot of Indian minds at the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA), the five-time world champion and the Pole, who was part of Anand's team at the World Championship at Sochi in 2014, exchanged a few words. "It wasn't about convincing (Gajewski)," Anand said. "They tried and it worked."