Chess in India

Chess in India
Chess in India
	Viswanathan Anand
Governing body	All India Chess Federation

Chess has risen in popularity in India in the last few decades primarily due to chess Grandmaster and former 5-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand.

It is believed that chess originated from Chaturanga of ancient India. The All India Chess Federation is the governing body for chess in India.

Indian Chess in Numbers

Records / Firsts

First National Champion: Ramchandra Sapre (1955).
First Indian International Master: Manuel Aaron (1961).
First Indian Grandmaster: Viswanathan Anand (1988).
First Indian Women's Grandmaster: Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi (2001).
First Indian participation in a Chess Olympiad: 1956, 12th Chess Olympiad at Moscow.
First Blind Chess Olympiad hosted by India: 2012, 14th Blind Chess Olympiad in Chennai.
First Indian Asian Senior Chess Champion (65+): Wazeer Ahmad Khan, 6th Asian Seniors at Lar in 2015.
Youngest Indian Grandmaster: Gukesh D at the age of 12. (2018)
First Chess Olympiad hosted in India: 2022, 44th Chess Olympiad in Chennai
Maximum number of Indian National Championship wins: 9 by Manuel Aaron.
Maximum number of Indian National Championship (Women) wins: 6 by Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi.
Maximum number of Indian National Championship (Blind) wins: 6 by Kishan Gangolli.
Youngest winner of the Candidates Tournament: Gukesh D at the age of 17 (Candidates Tournament 2024).

World Championships

Viswanathan Anand, held the FIDE title from 2000 to 2002, and the unified title from 2007 to 2013.
Gukesh D (challenger), scheduled to face defending world champion Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship 2024.

Highest rated players

The highest ranked Indian players are:

Gukesh D, ranked 6th in the world as of June 2024 with a rating of 2763
Arjun Erigaisi, ranked 8th in the world as of June 2024 with a rating of 2761.
R Praggnanandhaa, ranked 13th in the world as of June 2024 with a rating of 2747.
Koneru Humpy, ranked 5th in the world (Women's FIDE ratings) as of June 2024 with a rating of 2545.
Harika Dronavali, ranked 12th in the world (Women's FIDE ratings) as of June 2024 with a rating of 2489.
Vaishali Rameshbabu, ranked 14th in the world (Women's FIDE ratings) as of June 2024 with a rating of 2489.

World Top Lists

As of November 2021, the following is the number of Indian chess players in various segments:

World's Top 100: 6
World's Top 100 Women: 6
World's Top 100 Juniors (age under 20): 20
World's Top 100 Girls (age under 20): 12

GM and WGM Titles

India has produced:

81 Grandmasters. The latest GM is Sayanta Das.^[1]

Medals won by Indian Chess Team

Competition	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
World Team Championship	0	1	1	2
Olympiad	1	0	3	4
Asian Games	2	2	2	6
Asian Team Championship	3	11	7	21
Total	6	12	13	31

updated till 2023

Player statistics

Men

The top 10 Indian grandmasters as of January 2024 are listed below. ^[2] India has 9 players in top 100 FIDE Open rating list in 2023.

Some of the top Indian players

Viswanathan Anand
Rank 12
54 years

Gukesh D
Rank 23
17–18 years

P Harikrishna
Rank 29
38 years

Vidit Gujrathi
Rank 35
29–30 years

Nihal Sarin
Rank 63
19–20 years

Praggnanandhaa R
Rank 66
18–19 years

Viswanathan Anand is currently No. 9 in the FIDE World Rankings and the former World Champion. Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand (born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster and former world chess champion. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988, and is one of the few players to have surpassed an Elo rating of 2800, a feat he first achieved in 2006.

#	Player	Birth year	Rating	State	GM Title	World rank^{[n 1]}
1	Viswanathan Anand	1969	2748	Tamil Nadu	1988	11
2	Gukesh D	2006	2725	Tamil Nadu	2019	25
3	Vidit Gujrathi	1994	2742	Maharashtra	2013	14
4	Pentala Harikrishna	1986	2704	Andhra Pradesh	2001	33
5	Praggnanandhaa R	2005	2743	Tamil Nadu	2018	13
6	Arjun Erigaisi	2003	2738	Telangana	2018	17
7	Nihal Sarin	2004	2693	Kerala	2018	43
8	S. L. Narayanan	1998	2694	Kerala	2015	42
9	Chithambaram Arvindh VR	1999	2662	Tamil Nadu	2015	72
10	Aryan Chopra	2001	2630	NCT of Delhi	2017	119

Women

The top 10 women Indian chess players are listed below as of November 2013.^[3]

Indian women players in FIDE Top 100

Koneru Humpy
Rank 3
37 years

Dronavalli Harika
Rank 26
33 years

Tania Sachdev
Rank 42
37 years

Mary Ann Gomes
Rank 61
34 years

Eesha Karavade
Rank 78
36 years

R Vaishali
Rank 14
23 years

Blind players

The top blind Indian chess players are listed below as of December 2021.^[4]

#	Player	ELO Rating	Birth year	State	Notes
1	Darpan Inani	2124	1994	Gujarat	Bronze medal, World Junior chess Championship for the blind, Serbia, 2013
2	Kishan Gangolli	2113	1992	Karnataka	6-time winner at National A championships (Blind) from 2012 to 2019.
3	Charudatta Jadhav	1998		Maharashtra	President International Braille Chess Association
4	Kaustubh Khare	1982		Maharashtra
5	Aryan B Joshi	1909		Maharashtra
6	Oza Rajesh	1861	1977	Maharashtra
7	Shah Swapanil	1860	1966	Karnataka
8	Makhwana Ashwin K	1858		Maharashtra	2nd place, IBCA Asian Chess Championship for the Visually Challenged 2017
9	Patra Subhendu Kumar	1783		Odisha
10	Krishna Udupa	1733	1972	Karnataka	Founder, Nalanda Chess Academy, Shivamogga. First coach of GM Stany G.A.

List of National Sports award recipients in Chess, showing the year, award, and gender

Year	Recipient	Award	Gender
1991–1992	Viswanathan Anand	Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna	Male
1961	Manuel Aaron	Arjuna Award	Male
1980–1981	Rohini Khadilkar	Arjuna Award	Female
1983	Dibyendu Barua	Arjuna Award	Male
1984	Pravin Thipsay	Arjuna Award	Male
1985	Viswanathan Anand	Arjuna Award	Male
1987	Devaki Prasad	Arjuna Award	Male
1987	Bhagyashree Thipsay	Arjuna Award	Female
1990	Anupama Gokhale	Arjuna Award	Female
2000	Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi	Arjuna Award	Female
2002	Krishnan Sasikiran	Arjuna Award	Male
2003	Koneru Humpy	Arjuna Award	Female
2005	Surya Shekhar Ganguly	Arjuna Award	Male
2006	Pentala Harikrishna	Arjuna Award	Male
2007	Harika Dronavalli	Arjuna Award	Female
2009	Tania Sachdev	Arjuna Award	Female
2010	Parimarjan Negi	Arjuna Award	Male
2013	Abhijeet Gupta	Arjuna Award	Male
2022	Bhakti Kulkarni	Arjuna Award	Female
2022	R Praggnanandhaa	Arjuna Award	Male
2023	R Vaishali	Arjuna Award	Female
2021	Abhijit Kunte	Dhyan Chand Award	Male
2006	Koneru Ashok	Dronacharya Award	Male
2023	RB Ramesh	Dronacharya Award	Male

Notes

^ Active players only

References

^ "Pranav becomes India's 75nd Grand Master". The Times of India. 9 November 2021. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
^ "Federations Ranking: India". ratings.fide.com. World Chess Federation (FIDE). Retrieved 7 August 2023.
^ "Federations Ranking: India, Women". World Chess Federation (FIDE). Retrieved 24 November 2013.
^ "AICFB". Retrieved 24 November 2013.

External links

[3] Active players only

[1] "Pranav becomes India's 75nd Grand Master". The Times of India. 9 November 2021. Retrieved 1 December 2021.

[2] "Federations Ranking: India". ratings.fide.com. World Chess Federation (FIDE). Retrieved 7 August 2023.

[4] "Federations Ranking: India, Women". World Chess Federation (FIDE). Retrieved 24 November 2013.

[5] "AICFB". Retrieved 24 November 2013.

[1]

[2]

[n 1]

[3]

[4]

v t e Indian Grandmasters
Chess players for India with the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM)
Abhijeet Gupta Abhijit Kunte Adhiban Baskaran Aditya Mittal Aditya Samant Akshayraj Kore Ankit Rajpara Anurag Mhamal Aravindh Chithambaram Arjun Erigaisi Arjun Kalyan Aryan Chopra Ashwin Jayaram Bharath Subramaniyam Debashis Das Deep Sengupta Dibyendu Barua Diptayan Ghosh G. Akash Geetha Narayanan Gopal Girish A. Koushik Gukesh D Harika Dronavalli Harsha Bharathakoti Harshit Raja Himanshu Sharma J. Deepan Chakkravarthy Karthik Venkataraman Karthikeyan Murali Karthikeyan Pandian Koneru Humpy Koustav Chatterjee Krishnan Sasikiran Laxman Rajaram Leon Luke Mendonca M. R. Lalith Babu Magesh Chandran Panchanathan Mitrabha Guha Neelotpal Das Nihal Sarin P. Iniyan Parimarjan Negi Abhimanyu Puranik Pentala Harikrishna Pranav Anand Pranav V Pranesh M Pravin Thipsay Prithu Gupta Priyadharshan Kannappan Prraneeth Vuppala Rahul Srivatshav Peddi Raja Rithvik R Ramachandran Ramesh Raunak Sadhwani R Praggnanandhaa R Vaishali S. L. Narayanan S. P. Sethuraman Sahaj Grover Sandipan Chanda Sankalp Gupta Saptarshi Roy Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury Sayantan Das Shardul Gagare Shyam Sundar M. Srinath Narayanan Sriram Jha Stany G.A. Subramanian Arun Prasad Sundararajan Kidambi Surya Shekhar Ganguly Swapnil Dhopade Swayams Mishra Tejas Bakre Thejkumar M. S. Vaibhav Suri Venkatesh M. R. Vidit Gujrathi Vignesh N. R. Visakh N. R. Vishnu Prasanna V. Viswanathan Anand
See also: List of chess grandmasters List of Indian chess players § Grandmasters Chess in India Category:Indian chess players

v t e Indian Woman Grandmasters
Chess players for India with the FIDE title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM)
Aarthie Ramaswamy Bhakti Kulkarni ^IM Eesha Karavade ^IM Kiran Manisha Mohanty Kruttika Nadig Mary Ann Gomes Nisha Mohota ^IM P. V. Nandhidhaa Padmini Rout ^IM Pratyusha Bodda Soumya Swaminathan ^IM Srija Seshadri Subbaraman Meenakshi Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi ^IM Swati Ghate Tania Sachdev ^IM V. Varshini
^IM Additionally has an International Master (IM) title See also: List of Indian chess players § Woman Grandmasters Chess in India Category:Indian female chess players