The successful conduct of the 44th Chess Olympiad, held at Mahabalipuram from 28th July to 9th August, has indeed opened new doors, directions and dimensions to Chess in India.
The event was inaugurated in Chennai by none other than the Prime Minister himself, in presence of the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu several important personalities from all over the country. After all, for the first time in its history, India was hosting a sports event of this magnitude, with over 2000 participants from 186 countries taking part.
ASIA CUP 2022: FULL COVERAGE | SCHEDULE | RESULTS
The Tamil Nadu government spared no efforts to make the event better than the previous editions, with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister himself visiting the venue at Mahabalipuram on several occasions to ensure smooth conduct of the event; most of the participants expressed that this was the best Chess Olympiad they had ever witnessed.
The Tournament Director Bharat Singh Chauhan and the All India Chess Federation received applause from all over the world. The Union Government had initiated a Torch Relay to 75 historic Indian Cities 39 days prior to the inauguration, with renowned Chess players giving lectures and playing exhibition matches for the benefit of the masses.
The ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ was being celebrated in a novel way, creating a Chess wave all over the country. The performance of the Indian teams was also satisfactory. India bagged Bronze Medals in both Women’s Olympiad and the Open (Men’s) Olympiad, a feat which had never been achieved in the past.
Now that the mega event is over, it is time to plan for the future in a ‘phase-wise’ manner and more purposefully, and systematically. Certainly, India has already been performing brilliantly at Chess. Compared to the ‘singular success stories’ created in the 1980s and 1990s, India has been witnessing multiple and team success stories for the last two decades.
The fact that the Indian Team won Bronze in the 2014 Chess Olympiad, despite Viswanathan Anand being unable to play therein, speaks for itself. India has certainly emerged as a global superpower in Chess in the last two decades. The number of International Grandmasters and Master has multiplied several times in the country. The ‘Open Grandmaster tournaments’ in the country have opened doors to thousands of Indian players to achieve International Titles at low participation costs.
“There seems to be no need to do anything more" one would automatically react. But no, there is indeed a need to make some ‘real value addition’ to the existing system and let’s see why. I have often been facing an awkward question from Chess enthusiasts and journalists for over a decade now — “When will India see her next world champion?" and I have usually been replying in a simple and non-committal way “Austria saw her first world champion in 1886, so did Germany in 1894 and Cuba in 1921. But they are yet to see their next ones".
After all, there always is an element of uncertainty in sports and no country except the USSR has been able to produce world champions after world champions.
The reason for my non-committal reply is the simple fact that though India has produced several brilliant Chess players, only Viswanathan Anand and Koneru Humpy have reached the honour of getting into the top ten or in Candidate Matches. We need to discuss some core issues which are being avoided or overlooked by the Indian Chess Fraternity.
In 1998 and 2000, FIDE decided to opt for populist policies. The titles Grandmaster and International Master were lowered down, and more (lower) titles were eventually created, with the ELO rating level seeing the greatest degradation, from 2200 points to 1000 points. This resulted in more and more players getting ratings and titles. The populist process diluted the ELO rating system as well.
In 1978, there were only 12 players above 2600 whereas the August 2022 rating list has 14 players above 2750. Several talented Indian youngsters, who set their goals at 2600 or 2700 points, didn’t do justice to their potential, thereby reaching their targets quickly but at the cost of stagnating there.
The Indian Chess Fraternity doesn’t wish to go beyond the layman’s viewpoint of measuring talent only by ELO rating and titles. An instantaneous remark by the world champion Magnus Carsen, on seeing the composition of Indian teams at the Olympiad, – “India 2 team is stronger than India 1 team" –, certainly makes one introspect our outlook towards Chess players.
As the ‘head of the Indian delegation’ for the 44th Olympiad, I found the comment very alarming. That the world champion was proven right, with 11th seed India 2 team winning Bronze while second seed India 1 team finishing 4th, only casts further doubts on our thinking process.
Among the women, the top seed team India1 ended up on the podium by bagging the Bronze. We see entirely different patterns and trends in Indian Men’s and Women’s Chess.
Let us look at the individual medal won by Indians in the 44th Chess Olympiad.
(1) Dommaraju Gukesh – India2 team, GOLD on the top (first) board, Carlsen bagging only the Bronze.
(2) Nihal Sarin – India2 team, GOLD on the second board.
(3) Erigaisi Arjun – India1 team, SILVER on the third board.
(4) Rameshbabu Praggnanandha – India2 team, BRONZE on the third board.
(5) Rameshbabu Vaishali – India1 team in Women’s, BRONZE on third board.
(6) Tania Sachdev – India1 team in Women’s, BRONZE on fourth board.
(7) Divya Deshmukh – India2 team in Women’s, BRONZE on fifth board.
The above results reveal some important and significant facts. Five out of Seven individual medal winners (except Tania and Vaishali) are in their teens. Three out of four medal winners amongst men belonged to team India2 but these players had been denied entry to team India1 as per the rigid merit criterion.
The ‘bigwigs’ in team India1 failed to match the zeal and zest of the members of team India2. The surprising podium finish of team India2 is due to the brilliant performance of all the members and I must make a special mention to the efforts and foresight of the Coach of the team, Grandmaster R. B. Ramesh, who encouraged, motivated and trained the players successfully in coaching camps as well as during the tournament.
The best scoring in team India1 was on boards 3,4 and 5. In women, the team India1 was given the top seeding but they had to be content with the Bronze. Here too, the best scoring for the team was on boards 3,4 and 5.
Having played my first Chess tournament in 1971 and first Chess Olympiad in 1982, I had ample opportunities, occasions and time to study the path of the world champions from their start to their peak. I find that most of the champions have been in the top ten before the age of 22-23. Of course, there have been great players who made it to the top 25 or 30 at a similar age but they could never make it to the real top.
The reasons for the success story of everyone are different but my observations make me form an opinion about where should we be investing. Unfortunately, our system and society have been promoting the same players for decades without realising that we are knocking on the wrong doors. I wish to highlight some players, who, in my opinion, have better chances than others to reach the top.
I. Dommaraju Gukesh – Born on 29th May 2006, Gukesh seems to be best placed to reach the top. He is a player who is improving every day and has now reached a live ELO rating of 2733 points. He is being trained by Grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna for years and has no apparent weakness in the playing style. Gukesh tries to win every game irrespective of the merits of his position, which makes him one of the sharpest players in the world. With Computer-like accuracy in unknown positions, he is able to score stunning victories over several strongest players in the world. The fact that Gukesh’s rating was only 2576 a year back makes him the most serious contender for the world crown and I expect him to cross ELO 2800 in less than 2 years’ time.
II. Nihal Sarin – Born on 13th July 2004, Nihal was considered to be the brightest among Indian youngsters around 2 years ago. However, the speed of his improvement has slowed down a bit since then, as he has gained only 31 ELO in the last year. Nihal has had exposure to training from a very large number of trainers such as Mathew P. Joseph Pottoore, Mr M.B. Muralidharan, Prof. N.R. Anil Kumar, Mr C.T. Pathrose, K.K. Manikantan, E.P. Nirmal and Grandmasters Dimitri Komarov, Srinath Narayanan and lately Viswanathan Anand. Nihal has a very solid playing style and if he sharpens his sense of initiative and attack, we will find him at the top in approximately 2-3 years.
III. Erigaisi Arjun – Born on 3rd September 2003, Arjun came to the spotlight last year when he started winning tournaments after tournaments last year. After his victory in the Tata Steel Chess 2022 in January, the top players such as Levon Aronian, Viswanathan Anand and Magus Carlsen showered Arjun with comments full of appreciation and praise. Arjun is being trained by Grandmasters Viktor Mikhalevsky and Srinath Narayanan at the moment. Arjun’s accuracy is computer-like but his major strong point is his imagination. In a period of 12 months, Arjun has raised his ELO rating to 2689 from 2597, indicating his huge potential. Arjun is able to find the most unusual ideas in any position, which makes him a prominent contender for the World Chess crown. I expect him to cross the 2800 ELO rating in less than two years.
IV. Rameshbabu Praggnanandha – Born on 10th August 2005, Praggnanandha became known all over the world in 2013, when he won the World U-8 championship held in U.A.E. He has had several successful tournaments since then, the latest being his sensational match victory over Magnus Carlsen in the FTX Crypto Cup 2022 Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship. Praggnanandha’s sister Vaishali is also one of the finest Chess players in the world. Grandmaster R. B. Ramesh has been working with the siblings for several years and has groomed them in an excellent manner. Praggnanandha, just like young Viswanathan Anand, is extremely quick in his analysis and is able to spot combinations quicker than most of the players in the world. I observe that lately he has been very consistent in classical Chess as well and is likely to be at the top in the next two or three years.
There are some other very talented youngsters who missed the individual medal in the Olympiad by a whisker, 2005 born Raunak Sadhwani (team India 2) and 1998 born S L Narayanan (team India1), who played some very great games in the tournament and contributed to the success of their teams. I believe that they need to train under more trainers for at least a year, to broaden their knowledge and technical skills.
The scenario of women’s Chess in India, however, seems to have completely different patterns and trends. In the top seed India 1 team, which bagged the Bronze medal, there were no teenagers. The best performer for the team was 21-year-old R. Vaishali but Tania Sachdev and Bhakti Kulkarni also showed alertness and fighting spirits of a teenager and played a major role in the success of the team. Though Koneru Humpy and Dronavalli Harika were not at their best during the 44th Olympiad, they are still formidable and capable of striking hard in future.
Among the teenage woman players, 2005-born Divya Deshmukh of Maharashtra and 2002-born Vantika Agrawal of Delhi, (both played brilliantly for team India 2) seem to be the most promising but one must point out that none of the top Indian woman Chess players has shown a significant gain in their ELO rating recently and the All India Chess Federation needs to take some concrete steps to change this.
Women’s Chess has not been given due importance by the Indian Chess Fraternity, in general. It was only in 2017 that the All India Chess Federation decided to take some concrete steps for Women’s Chess. However, conducting ‘only for women’ International tournaments in the country – both round robin and Swiss league – is the need of the hour.
The training methods and international exposure trips to women players also need to be planned in a different way. The fact that there are no women on the selection committee or in the policy-making committees could be a reason but it’s time for us to understand and comply with the requirements of the women Chess players at the grassroots level.
I end with the note that now, after watching the 44ths Chess Olympiad in person, I am far more optimistic about seeing our players follow the footsteps of the illustrious career and life of Viswanathan Anand and that someday soon, the Indian anthem will be played at the prize giving of the World Chess Championships.
Read all the Latest Sports News and Breaking News here
Comments
0 comment