Gukesh’s Form Slump Draws Sharp Criticism From McShane

The Gukesh Dommaraju form conversation has taken on a sharper edge this week, with English grandmaster and Spectator chess columnist Luke McShane delivering one of the more pointed public assessments yet of the reigning World Champion’s struggles. McShane described Gukesh’s recent games as “painful to watch,” saying they leave the impression of a player who can currently do little right at the board — a striking line from a respected voice in the chess commentary world, and one that captures a feeling many fans have quietly been having for months.

A Slump That’s Been Building All Year

McShane’s comment doesn’t exist in isolation. It follows directly from Gukesh’s dismal showing at the Chennai Grand Masters, where the World Champion finished dead last in an eight-player field, losing three of his seven games in front of a home crowd. That result extended a rough stretch that has also included disappointing finishes at Tata Steel in Wijk aan Zee, the Prague Chess Festival, and Norway Chess, where he was among the players overtaken by Praggnanandhaa’s late four-game winning surge.

The numbers back up the eye test. Gukesh has shed roughly 75 rating points over the past 19 months, a decline that’s become one of the most closely tracked storylines in elite chess this year, precisely because of what’s waiting for him at the end of it.

Carlsen Weighed In First

McShane isn’t the first major figure to say the quiet part out loud. Magnus Carlsen himself remarked earlier this year that Sindarov looked “a lot more well rounded” compared to Gukesh, who he said carried “very obvious weaknesses.” Coming from the man who spent over a decade as the sport’s most dominant player, that assessment landed with real weight — and McShane’s comment this week reads very much like an echo of the same underlying concern, just phrased more bluntly.

The Timing Makes It Worse

What turns this from a passing rough patch into a genuine storyline is the calendar. Gukesh is contracted to defend his World Championship title later this year against Javokhir Sindarov, the Uzbek grandmaster who dominated the 2026 Candidates Tournament in Cyprus with an unbeaten 10/14 score, a record in the modern all-play-all format. Both players are still teenagers turning 20, making it the youngest title match in chess history — a fact that would ordinarily be the headline on its own, if Gukesh’s form weren’t overshadowing it.

Gukesh has already made a notable concession to the pressure, announcing he’ll scale back his 2026 Grand Chess Tour commitments to focus on training — with Sindarov, of all people, stepping in as his replacement on the Tour schedule. It’s a decision that reads as a tacit admission that something needs to change before Geneva.

Not Every Signal Is Bad

It’s worth noting that McShane’s own writing elsewhere has been careful not to write Gukesh off entirely, pointing out that the World Champion has historically been a player who saves his best chess for the biggest occasions, regardless of what his form looks like beforehand. That’s precisely the question hanging over the rest of 2026: whether Gukesh’s slump is a genuine structural problem in his game, or simply a rough patch that happens to be peaking at the worst possible moment, right before the most important match of his career.

What Comes Next

With the Geneva match still months away, Gukesh has time to arrest the slide — but every tournament between now and then will be read through this exact lens. Commentary like McShane’s isn’t going to fade quietly into the background either; if anything, it raises the stakes on every remaining event Gukesh plays before he sits down across from Sindarov for the title itself.