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