This week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with grandmaster Anish Giri.Today’s podcast once again reaches you from Paphos, in Cyprus, where at the luxurious Cap Saint Georges hotel the Candidates tournament has come to an end after two weeks of excitement and captivating chess. Anish was one of the pretournament favourites and one of the absolute stars of the 2026 Candidates, but in the end he, too, had to bow to the exceptional performance of the winner, twenty-year-old Javokhir Sindarov from Uzbekistan.Together with Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, Anish talks about his mixed feelings and looks back on the Candidates tournament from his perspective. 0:00 – Intro 1:32 – Does Anish have mixed feelings at the end of this tournament? 5:35 – Not beating Wei Yi in the twelfth round 8:40 – Is Anish “not dangerous enough”? 14:35 – Fabiano Caruana’s performance 20:11 – AD BREAK 20:44 – The switch from increment to non-increment play 29:18 – Javokhir Sindarov 33:27 – Erdogmus 37:00 – The hidden coach: Roman Vidonyak 39:25 – Anish’s theory about Javokhir’s rise 45:33 – Modern chess training and coaching 58:30 – AD BREAK 59:50 – Untold: Chess Mates 1:02:20 – Anish’s venture with ChessMonitor 1:08:08 – Outro

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

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