The right moves

India has developed an excellent chess ecosystem

The performance of several Indian youngsters at the chess World Cup has indicated they are already close to being world-beaters. In a Wimbledon-style format, four Indians made it to the quarterfinals. R Praggnanandhaa beat the world number 2 and world number 3 before losing in the finals to the world number 1, Magnus Carlsen. Praggnanandhaa also edged out his compatriot Arjun Erigaisi in an epic quarterfinal battle. Gukesh D lost only to Carlsen and Vidit Gujrathi knocked out the world number 5 before making his own exit. This coordinated performance was not an accident. India has developed a chess ecosystem that discovers and nurtures champions. This is due to a combination of many factors. For one, India has a huge and growing population of regular chess players and a local circuit and fanbase which offers ample room for them to hone their skills.

This creates a virtuous feedback loop. Due to the popularity of the sport, there are also a fair number of companies willing to sponsor events and pick up costs for coaching camps. Further, governments in various states, along with the Centre, have been consistently willing to offer facilities as well as financial support. Some global technological trends also favour India’s chess players. The game has a huge digital footprint, which increased exponentially due to the pandemic. Not only is it possible to play chess 24x7 against tough opposition online, it is possible to win prize money and generate streaming revenues while playing online. Given India’s large smartphone-toting population and the proliferation of cheap data plans, this gets Indian players, even those who reside in Tier-II and -III cities, to face high-quality opposition and the zoom coaching they need. As a result, talented players from towns such as Nashik, Guntur, Warangal, and Thrissur compete on near-equal terms with their metro counterparts.

The digitisation of chess has also equalised access to information and that, again, hugely favours India. Multi-million game databases are available and games can be downloaded in real time as they are played. Analysis, even done on a smartphone, is of very high quality. As a result, players without access to human coaches can still hone their skills to pretty high standards. In addition, India does have an excellent ecosystem of chess coaches and this is expanding. At the top end, grandmasters like R B Ramesh and Viswanathan Anand offer their valuable insights to players like Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh.

Perhaps even more importantly, there are chess coaches available to competently teach the basics to beginners and these pedagogues are present across regions. Furthermore, since the game has an extremely good branding in terms of helping to develop focus and logical thinking, many schools offer it as an extra-curricular activity. This is one reason why over 10,000 Indians played official tournaments in the last one year and it’s very likely that these numbers will continue to grow. Like almost every other sport federation in the country, the All India Chess Federation (AICF) has had its share of legal cases and scandals. However, whatever the other faults of AICF officials may be, they have all consistently worked towards creating a healthy environment for playing and promoting chess. They deserve the credit for this.