• Know about achievements of India’s young chess players and contribution of the Anand Westbridge Chess Academy to their success plus history of Chess Olympiad.

The Indian victory in both the open section and the women’s section at the 45^th Chess Olympiad in Budapest was nothing short of spectacular. The event was a truly global one, with more than 180 nations participating who sent their top five players for chess’s most important team event. 

Surely this victory ranks as one of India’s most magnificent wins ever, not just in chess but across sports! 

In the Open section, D Gukesh, R Praggnanadhaa, Arjun Erigaisi, Vidit Gujrathi and P Harikrishna won the title scoring 21 points out of a total of 22 points from 11 rounds. Second placed USA managed 17 points, showing the margin of India’s victory. Defending champions Uzbekistan finished third, also with 17 points. Going into the tournament, India was seeded second behind USA.

Besides team glory, individual glory was also in abundance. Gukesh won the Gold Medal on the 1^st board, scoring 9 points from 10 rounds. His victories included a stunning win over world no. 3, Fabiano Caruana, from USA. Arjun Erigaisi won the Gold Medal on the 3^rd board, with a score of 10 points from 11 rounds. At the end of the tournament, Arjun Erigaisi and Gukesh were up to world no.3 and world no.5 as per the live ratings (they were ranked world no. 4 and world no.7 respectively as per the September FIDE ratings before the Olympiad).

In the women’s section, D Harika, R Vaishali, Divya Deshmukh, Vantika Agrawal and Tania Sachdev came first, with 19 points. This was a much closer contest, with Kazakhstan finishing second with 18 points and USA third with 17 points. Divya Deshmukh won the individual Gold Medal on board 3, and Vantika won the individual Gold Medal on board 4.

What was particularly impressive was that both the men’s team and the women’s team were very young, and that bodes very well for the future of Indian chess. 

In the open section, Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa and Arjun are 18, 19 and 21 respectively. In the women’s section, Divya, Vantika and Vaishali are 18, 21 and 23 respectively. The other players on the teams also contributed very significantly, with their experience.

A lot of people rightly give the credit of this success to living legend and five-time world champion, Vishwanathan Anand. He became India’s first chess grandmaster in 1988, and his success inspired a generation of youngsters to take to the game. India today has no fewer than 85 grandmasters! Anand not only inspired this set of youngsters to dizzying heights of success, but he mentored them too. 

He also provided a platform to train some of these players by founding the Anand Westbridge Chess Academy in Chennai – Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Erigaisi and Vaishali have all trained in this academy, and are very open in saying how much it helped them in their chess careers. The world acknowledges Anand’s role in supporting these youngsters, and as former World Champion Garry Kasparov put it, “Vishy’s children are all grown up.”

The next thing to really look out for in India chess is the Chess World Championship final, scheduled to be held in Singapore in November 2024 between Gukesh and China’s Ding Liren, the current World Champion, who got his title in 2022 after defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia, after Norway’s Magnus Carlsen decided not to defend his title. Earlier this year, Gukesh won the Candidates tournament to become the youngest ever challenger to the World Champion. After Anand, Gukesh is just the second India in history to play for the world title! 

Post the Chess Olympiad, Gukesh’s live rating is 2,794.1 (making him the current world no.5), and Ding Liren’s live rating is 2,727.8 (making him the world no.21)! It would be a folly to underestimate Ding Liren, who has shown his tremendous fighting skills over the past few years – the fact that he is World Champion is no mean achievement!

With the buzz that we are seeing about the Chess Olympiad, let’s take a quick look at the history of this prestigious tournament. 

The 1^st official Chess Olympiad was held in London in 1927. Since then, it has largely been an event that has taken place once in 2 years, barring disruptions during World War II and the Corona Virus pandemic (when it was held online). The current tournament was the 45^th in the series. The Soviet Union won this tournament a staggering 18 times! After the Soviet Union split up, Russia won the Chess Olympiad a further 6 times.

In the open category, the statistics for gold medal winners are: Soviet Union – 18, USA – 6, Russia – 6, Hungary – 3, Armenia – 3, Ukraine – 2, China – 2, Yugoslavia- 1, Poland – 1, Germany – 1 and Uzbekistan – 1. India has now joined this elite list. The women’s event began in 1957. The Gold medal winners in 30 editions of this section have been: USSR – 11, China – 6, Georgia – 4, Russia – 3, Hungary -2, Ukraine – 2, Israel – 1, and now India – 1. In the open section, the most successful players of all time have been Tigran Petrosian (Soviet Union) and Vasily Smyslov (Soviet Union), both of whom have won 9 individual Gold medals, followed closely by Garry Kasparov (Soviet Union, then Russia) and Mikhail Tal (Soviet Union), who have both won 8. 

In the women’s event, the most successful players ever have been Nona Gaprindashvili (Soviet Union, then Georgia), with 11 individual Gold medals, and Maia Chiburdanidze (Soviet Union, then Georgia), who won 9 individual Gold medals. 

The future seems very exciting for India chess. Given India’s less than dominant position in most other sports (barring cricket and perhaps hockey, to name a few on this very short list), it’s very heartening to see India at the very top in this sport, and that too, in a sport that is played with keen interest in almost every country across the world!

Best Wishes to Gukesh for the Chess World Championship final.

Author Akshay is a Gurgaon based chess coach, who teaches the game to beginners and intermediate level players. He has taught chess online, on a one-on-one basis, to well over a hundred children across India, USA, Singapore, Australia, UAE and UK. He left his corporate career and has now transformed his interest into his work, by spending time on a game he loved in his growing up years!

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