Well, even though Sheva himself was not confident he could gain an upper hand against Gukesh, the boy still took his time to prepare for the game. He tried to deepen his understanding of his opponent's style while also figuring out some obvious patterns in the boy's playing style.
One thing that he paid attention to the most, though, was that Gukesh always had a strong opening preparation. The Indian boy always blitzed his way through the opening stage, always making his first ten or fifteen moves in under ten minutes. This meant either the boy knew what he wanted to do from the beginning or his understanding of most openings in the world was flawless. Whatever the reality was, though, all of them spelled trouble for Sheva.
