Atreyo Mukhopadhyay in Goa
How one year can bring about changes unheard of! Buried under the exploits of Viswanathan Anand, Indian chess has turned a new leaf following the 2022 Olympiad in Chennai. Success after success followed, climaxing in D Gukesh’s World Championship triumph. Now, this generation doesn’t aim at anything else other than the highest. It’s a sea change.
Before 2024, the only Indian to have qualified for the Candidates Championship, which selects the challenger to the world champion, was Anand. Last year, Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi qualified for the elite event. Now, less than three is deemed underachievement. For next year’s women’s Candidates, Koneru Humpy, Divya Deshmukh and R Vaishali have made the cut. Pragg is on course to qualifying for the men’s event. Five from the country including him are vying for the top three spots in the FIDE World Cup, which secure tickets to the eight-player competition.
“The break induced by Covid-19 gave this generation the chance to engage only with chess for a long period,” Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte told RevSportz. He is in Goa as the tournament director of the ongoing World Cup. “All these juniors started doing well after that. Anand getting actively into the coaching programme has given them confidence. When a world champion is guiding you, you feel that this is achievable. That level of confidence was really helpful. They came into the top 10 and started playing with the best players regularly. These things have helped our players.”
These players believe they will have failed if they don’t make it to the Candidates. The dejection on the faces of those who lost and the aspiration in the eyes of those who advanced to the fourth round of the World Cup make it clear. Nihal Sarin was crestfallen after his ouster in the second round. Karthik Venkataraman is ranked 20th in India and 228th in the world. He has made it to the Round of 32 at the World Cup. He is not happy with that and has his sights set on a Candidates berth.
“They are more confident and their performance speaks about it. Earlier, our players were not really eyeing for the top 10 or top five. They were happy to get into the top 25 and believed it was a miracle. But now, many of them think they can achieve these things. I think that has been a big boost,” said Kunte, who became India’s fourth Grandmaster in 2000 and saw a generation of players that promised to break into the top rung but failed. The change from then and now is anything lower than a podium finish is considered as failure.
“They are winning titles everywhere. Like Arjun (Erigaisi), who won so many open events. If you go to Europe, you will find that Indians are performing at a very high level, winning so many tournaments. That has given them confidence that we can also do it, which has helped everyone in the picture,” said the player from Pune. He has a point. After the exploits of Gukesh and Erigaisi last year, Pragg won three titles in 2025 and Aravindh Chithambaram two.
“It’s natural because you know that there are already a few playing in the Candidates. That is the highest level. That we have a world champion has raised the bar. You usually try to be at least No. 1 in India. And now, the bar for the India No. 1 is being in the top five in the world. So, automatically, all the players are going to have an eye on the highest things. If they are to replace the top players in India, they have to replace the top players in the world,” concluded Kunte.
Also Read: Highs and lows for India: Gukesh’s ouster and Erigaisi’s scintillating run