Magnus Carlsen believes the next generation of chess superstars, including reigning world champion D. Gukesh is on the right track.

But at the same time, the five-time world champion believes the youngsters need to gain maturity in several aspects of the game to catch up with the experienced set, including himself, Fabiano Caruana, and Hikaru Nakamura.

Carlsen also praised the playing style of Gukesh to his from over 15 years ago, considering the control over games.

“I think the kids are on track but they are not like way ahead of way ahead of schedule. Looking at the Gukesh game I feel it is quite similar to what I was doing in 2008, and in 2009, when I was when I was breaking through it wasn’t always so pretty. There was this tournament for instance, Linares in 2008, where Vishy [Viswanathan Anand] was cruising in the first place and I was just playing crazy games and honestly getting more out of the positions than kind of my pure chess skill suggested,” said Carlsen after winning Norway Chess 2025.

Earlier in the tournament, Gukesh had claimed his first classical win over Carlsen and was in the race for a maiden Norway Chess title going into the final round. But the Indian Grand Master succumbed to a defeat to Caruana and eventually settled for third in the standings.

Carlsen lauded Gukesh’s ability to stay in title contention in elite tournaments, despite his error-prone ways.

“You can see in certain games that in parts of the game, Gukesh and Arjun are far behind me, Fabian, and Hikaru. But we’re also the very best players in the world. They’re not supposed to be our equals in every part of the game.

The fact that Gukesh can actually fight for tournament victory despite having so many bad positions which he will probably not be happy with himself; is encouraging and I think it’s typical, that’s what kids do as part of the process,” added Carlsen.