Indian Chess Team: Board of Champions

THE RISE OF INDIA in chess has been evident for some time. The FIDE Candidates tournament, that finds a challenger to the world champion, earlier this year—where as many as five Indians were compet­ing, and whose open category Dommaraju Gukesh eventually won—had all but confirmed it. But the performance of the Indian contingent at the recently-held Chess Olympiad, and the sheer manner in which it domi­nated the competition, made the world sit up and take notice. It was one of India’s greatest moments in the sport, and it potentially marks the mo­ment when the country went from one on the rise to a chess superpower.

India won both team gold medals in Budapest, for the open and the women’s sections, apart from four individual golds. It was the kind of dominance that has not been seen since the time Soviet Union picked up double team golds (four times between 1982 to 1986), and China more recently in 2018.

The men’s team in the open section was particularly dominating. Out of their 44 games, they lost just once, winning 27, and drawing the remaining. By comparison, the women’s category was more competitive. India’s female team were not favourites to begin with, and they entered the final round tied with Kazakhstan, well aware that even a win against Azerbaijan might not secure them a gold. But as it had happened so frequently throughout the tournament, the team pulled through in crunch moments and overwhelmed their opponents. (A favourable result elsewhere, the US drawing Kazakhstan 2-2, meant they had secured the gold.)

There were also great individual performances. Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, Divya Deshmukh and Vantika Agrawal picked up individual golds, with Gukesh, in particular, solidifying his status as one of India’s leading chess stars. He dominated the tournament, beating three players with 2700-plus ratings, and drawing with another one in that bracket, and went on to become one of the individuals to cross the 3000 rating performance mark at a major classical chess tournament. In many ways, this was his redemption tournament. Two years ago, during the Chess Olympiad in Chennai, despite having a great tournament, he had pressed for a win in the penultimate round against Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov, when just a draw would have sufficed to keep India in the hunt. He lost and the team had to settle for a bronze. After the double gold at Budapest, he referred to that moment. “I had a personal debt to pay back. We could say that last time we could not win the team gold because of my mistake,” he said.

What this performance marks out in particular is the coming of age of a golden generation of Indian chess players. India may have been the land where chess originated, but apart from Viswanathan Anand and his pursuits, it has had little to show for it. A new generation had been making itself visible in recent years. A bit shy and circumspect in appearance, and often accompanied by parents, they made their way into tournaments, took down some big names and gave a good account of themselves. But with this Olympiad win, they have now made an emphatic statement about their arrival. Many of them are also very young—six out of the 10 in the current contingent are under 23 years old—and they could potentially dominate the sport in the coming years. There is also a great depth in talent. Koneru Humpy, India’s top-ranked women’s player, for instance, did not even participate in this competition. Among the men, two Indians— Erigaisi and Gukesh—are currently ranked three and five in the world, respectively, as per live ratings. Anand and R Praggnanandhaa are two more among the top 15 in the world currently. Many more, equally young, are in the mix and coming up the ranks.

This had already been the greatest year for chess in India. Apart from the record number of Indians making it to the Candidates tournament, Praggnanandhaa defeated Magnus Carlsen, one of the greatest chess players of all time, for the first time in the classical format at the Norway Chess tournament, and now this double Olympiad win. It could get even better, when Gukesh squares off against China’s Ding Liren for the World Championship later this year. Irrespective of how that game plays out, a new generation has announced its arrival.

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