Duda On 'Crisis Of Faith' And Thoughts Of Quitting Chess

Polish number-one GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda’s greatest achievement so far is winning the 2021 FIDE World Cup, but in a recent interview the 26-year-old described that as “a big step backward” for his career. He revealed he’d struggled to cope with the media attention and his mental and physical health had suffered. After setbacks at the 2024 FIDE Chess Olympiad he says, “I decided I’d become an amateur” and he turned down invitations to both Wijk aan Zee and Prague. Bronze at the 2024 FIDE World Blitz Championship helped persuade him to play on for at least another year.

GM Ding Liren’s mental struggles after winning the world championship title have been well-documented, but Duda’s revelations only came last month at the end of a victorious run in the Endorfy Chess Challenge Poland 2025, a 15-player Speed Chess Championship-style online event. Duda swept the field, winning 14-5 vs. IM Jan Malek, 14-6 vs. GM Szymon Gumularz, and finally 13.5-4.5 in the Final vs. IM Kacper Drozdowski.

After the final was over, host IM Dawid Czerw talked to the players (in Polish) for well over an hour. 

Both had plenty to say, with 28-year-old Drozdowski, by coincidence now settled in the same small town of Wieliczka outside Krakow as Duda, talking about how accepting a scholarship to the University of Texas at Dallas in 2014 had gone:

If we’re talking about getting an education, then it went great, but if we’re talking about chess, then it somewhat killed my career. Yesterday Szymon [Gumularz] said how hard it had been for him to play in the States. The truth is that when I went there at 17 I had a rating of 2470, and I returned five years later with 2450.

Drozdowski explained that the studies were tough so that when he played he was exhausted, with young and at the time underrated U.S. stars such as GMs Jeffery Xiong, Sam Sevian, and Awonder Liang preying on “tired students for rating and norms.”

By far the most interesting part of the post-match discussion, however, was when Duda began to talk about his career and recent crisis.

2024 Olympiad Is Last Straw For Duda

Duda began by talking about the Chess Olympiad that took place in Budapest in September 2024:

I admit that I had a very big crisis of faith after the Olympiad. The Olympiad really made me angry, for some reason. That’s strange, in fact, because I gained 10 rating points, and I was fourth on the top board, but I was very, very unhappy with my play there and generally at some point I decided I’d become an amateur.

At some point I decided I'd become an amateur.

Duda’s 2794 rating performance for Poland was bettered on top board only by GMs Gukesh Dommaraju, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and Magnus Carlsen.

The statistics hide the emotions, however, with Duda commenting:

I have very little positive feedback from playing chess. What dominates is the negative—won games don’t give me any feeling of satisfaction and wasted opportunities, such as at the Olympiad, where I drew with Dragnev like an idiot…

I have very little positive feedback from playing chess.

The game he was recalling was one of the most memorable moments of the Olympiad. Duda was completely winning against GM Valentin Dragnev of Austria in round six if he’d played 36.Kxf1!, but 36.Kh2?? ran into a show-stopping queen sacrifice, 36…Qxh3+!!.  

That forced an almost instant draw by perpetual check. Duda didn’t hide his emotions as the game came to an end.

Duda has no choice but to take a draw vs. Dragnev, who stunned him with a brilliant queen sac! https://t.co/OiSr4QmDlZ #ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/LGYnt2XWN0

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 16, 2024

Then against GM Bodgan-Daniel Deac in the next round, Duda walked into what he called an “absurd fork” to lose in one move.

Polish #1 Duda blunders a piece to a one-move fork in the endgame!

"The Polish team captain is going to have a sleepless night over this, whether they win or lose," says Naroditsky.https://t.co/Vp2ZhnjDEN#ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/3NUbfOiyif

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 18, 2024

That was his only loss of the event, but the damage was done. Duda explained that wins in no way compensate for the losses:

The negative feedback is incomparable, in the sense that when I won the first three games, all of those games were quite murky and in general I felt nothing.

Duda acted on his Olympiad experience, revealing:

I turned down a couple of tournaments now, Wijk aan Zee and Prague, to be honest, and then, at the end of the year, after getting the medal, I knew I had to press another year, and let’s see what happens. But I already turned down all those tournaments, so now I don’t have anywhere particular to play classical chess, but in the second half [of the year] there will be, so perhaps I’ll train a little, train a few variations, have a look at something, do a couple of studies, and perhaps it’ll be better!

The medal Duda refers to is bronze at the World Blitz Championship in New York, which he achieved by finishing in the top-eight and then beating GM Fabiano Caruana 2.5-0.5 in the Quarterfinals before losing 3-0 to Carlsen in the Semifinals.

Duda has also twice finished runner-up in Blitz, but even his latest podium finish didn’t bring him too much relief. He explained:

The problem is that I get almost no positive feedback, so maybe I’m a bit tired of it all, and recently I started to feel something similar in all time controls. Earlier it was unthinkable for me that I wouldn’t want to play blitz, for example, but in New York it was terrible, so exhausting, and not even pleasant, to be honest, so there’s a mild crisis of faith.

Earlier it was unthinkable for me that I wouldn't want to play blitz.

Duda said he’d enjoyed playing the online event as he could experiment, but wasn’t hiding his thoughts of quitting professional chess. One issue with that, however, is that he explained that even in his free-time his favorite relaxation is to read chess books!

My whole life is connected to chess. That’s all I know at this level, and generally it’s a style of life. As they say, you don’t need to be a genius to play chess, you need to be a genius to give it up!

As they say, you don’t need to be a genius to play chess, you need to be a genius to give it up!

Winning The 2021 World Cup Sowed Seeds Of Crisis

Duda called his current state “an existential crisis of sorts, a torn soul,” but where did it begin? Surprisingly, perhaps, with a phenomenal achievement—winning the 2021 World Cup, a tournament where he only needed rapid tiebreaks against GM Alexander Grischuk and Carlsen, with all his remaining opponents dispatched in classical chess.

Duda called that triumph in Sochi, “the happiest moment of my career,” and one he struggled to believe, also because, “for some very random reason, I played very well in terms of quality.” He explained:

I had a mental crisis after winning the World Cup. It was a little overwhelming. Of course it was my greatest achievement. I’m very proud of it… but from the point of view of my future career, it was a big step backward, in the sense that the pressure was very big, the media frenzy, and so on, and so on, and then my health started to fall apart, first mentally, and then physically, and it wasn’t too nice.

From the point of view of my future career, it was a big step backward.

—Duda on winning the 2021 FIDE World Cup

What was happening wasn’t immediately visible to outsiders, however. Duda confessed that his motivation, which he says has always been fueled by ego and rivalry rather than chess per se, dropped precipitously in 2022, but he still won big events. He explained:

I still got by on momentum, you could say, because in 2021 I had a very good year, and in 2022, before the Candidates, I also played various online tournaments. I would win, finish in the top-three, not in every event, but in a lot. I won the Oslo Esports Cup, and so on. I won the Grand Chess Tour in Warsaw, but that was more the force of inertia.

The looming event on the horizon, however, was the 2022 FIDE Candidates Tournament in Madrid and a chance to qualify for a world championship match. Asked if Duda was affected by negative comments despite almost all Polish fans being on his side, he responded:

It wasn’t about haters or something like that, but it was just too much. Also those around me put a lot of pressure on me, that I was to be everywhere, so to speak, as far as possible, and also the preparation for the Candidates Tournament was just badly done, in the sense that there was too much pressure. I didn’t have particularly good chances of winning it, but I approached it like the Holy Grail, or something like that. Such a tournament, like launching into space, so important, and so on, and so on.

I approached it like the Holy Grail.

—Duda on the Candidates Tournament

Duda said that despite missing a win in the first game against GM Richard Rapport, he’d kept things together for a while, but in the end four losses and one win saw him finish in joint last place, while it was winner GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, and second-placed Ding (after Carlsen decided not to defend his title) who went on to play a world championship match.

The Polish number-one can by now see the funny side of his second loss, to Rapport, which effectively knocked him out of contention:

There are those clips of my game with Rapport when I was mega frustrated, because I lost a better position in five moves… All of my wriggling, even Hikaru probably can’t compete! At least there are GIFs as a souvenir.

Chess is tough, as Duda's World Championship dream crumbles, at least for now! https://t.co/HwlE2waHpk #c24live #FIDECandidates pic.twitter.com/W4s0zNjvsN

— chess24 (@chess24com) June 26, 2022

That wasn’t the low point of 2022, however, with Duda noting the “peak of frustration was the Olympiad in India where for various reasons there was no captain.” He revealed the Polish team had got into arguments, and in the end he only played five games, with a round-seven loss to GM Mark Paragua his last contribution.

Duda’s struggles would continue in 2023. In January he withdrew from the Tata Steel Chess Masters before it began, while in November he was forced to break off his appearance in the Sinquefield Cup mid-tournament.

Jan-Krzysztof Duda has withdrawn from the tournament, citing health issues. As a result, his first round draw against Giri will be voided and all other opponents will have a bye round. The tournament will now be out of 8 points instead of 9. #SinquefieldCup #grandchesstour pic.twitter.com/GZ1FNWxq2b

— Grand Chess Tour (@GrandChessTour) November 23, 2023

“The Mental Element Is Very Big In Chess”

Duda is known as a fighting chess player, and in chess that’s almost all mental. He commented:

The mental element is very big in chess. That’s what gives the game it’s meaning, because otherwise it would be pure mathematics and the result would be known in advance, so it was rivalry that drove me the most.

His joy in playing has diminished:

I haven’t had any fun playing classical chess for a long time, but it wasn’t the case that I had negative feedback, it was just neutral, I treated it as a normal job. Maybe it’s not super pleasant, but it’s a task you have to do, and that’s all. But lately, it’s almost only been negative feedback from playing chess and I don’t know, maybe it was too much, maybe the pandemic, maybe looking at too many games with engines, and some unrealistic expectations I’ve given myself.

He also reflected on age, despite still only being 26 years old, admitting that the likes of 19-year-old GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and 18-year-old Gukesh are training harder.

I was young, I was one of the best in the world, and now all of these youngsters are mega chess fanatics. In chess terms, not about motivation or desire, I still consider myself the favorite against almost anyone in a match. But it’s a problem of age, that my passion has burnt out somewhat.

I was young, I was one of the best in the world, and now all of these youngsters are mega chess fanatics.

For Duda, as for eight-years-older Carlsen, opening preparation is a chore. He admits, “I never had the discipline of [GM Radoslaw] Wojtaszek, for example, two weeks before a tournament, for so many hours a day, to memorize everything in turn.” He’s been able to compensate, however, with resourcefulness:

I think I’m quite good in defense. I have a big bag of tricks that I’ve drawn on in my life, but you also learn bad habits, at some point. That’s precisely why playing Magnus is so tough, because he’s very objective and often he punishes you. With other opponents it depends, it’s a question of the day and so on, of course they can also play powerfully, but only against Magnus do I have the feeling that he’s an oracle, the best version of man, compared to computers.

Only against Magnus do I have the feeling that he's an oracle.

Duda isn’t playing in the 2025 Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam that starts in Germany tomorrow, but he is a member of the Players Club. The rules of Chess960/Fischer Random Chess, with pieces shuffled nearly at random on the back rank, could provide a perfect opportunity for him to showcase his skillset.

He didn’t refer to the series directly, but commented:

That aspect of memory in chess is very sad, and that’s why so many players like to play Fischer Random Chess, because there you don’t have it, and you won’t have it. There are too many starting positions.

Duda did confirm, however, that he plans to play normal classical chess this year, at least at the 2025 FIDE World Cup and the 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss. The way those events go may have an impact on his future. He commented:

It’s a question of what kind of feelings I’ll have this year. If they're unfavorable, then I don’t really see a future, to be honest, like I’ve had until now.

Let’s hope Duda can recover his relish for the game and still has a long career ahead at the top of world chess!