All-time Chess Achievements by India(ns)

[prasen9]

Atithee asked except for Anand's being world #1, etc. what have we achieved. A lot.

In 2009, we won a bronze in the men's world chess team championships. In 2021, we won a silver in the same but in the women's section.

The last two years ('21, '22) we have won the men's bronze in the Olympiads. This thing started in 1924 or so and happens every year. The only other time we won a bronze was in 2014. So things are indeed looking up --- to an extent. We will see what this young crop does.

As an aside, Pakistan won a bronze in an alternate championship in 1976, when a bunch of countries boycotted the Israel Olympiad and went to Tripoli instead and played there. I think the Soviets did not go anywhere because they did not recognize Israel then.

And, India won the virtual Olympiad in 2020 (joint) in the men's.

On the women's side, this year was the first time we won a bronze in the Olympiads.

Others, please feel free to what you consider top-tier achievements.

[Atithee]

I’m sorry; but these don’t seem huge accomplishments for me. And, I was asking more in terms of individual achievements. When I say huge, I mean do not seem commensurate with the rankings bonanza. Again, it’s me. If others feel these are great, I will accept their position. Thanks for putting a summary together, Prasen.

[rajitghosh]

I assume you are looking for achievements outside of those by Anand. Anand has won practically everything there is to win right from world championship in every format- matchplay, league and knockout, the world cup twice, the World Blitz Cup, all big tournaments such as Linares, Corus, Dortmund, Reggio Emilia, the Mainz Chess Classic, the Amber tournament at Monaco, matches on Fisher Random Chess, junior world championship and so on.
Here are a few more:
Humpy: runner up in the world women's chess championship, winner in world rapid championship, junior world championship, semifinalist in world championship on multiple occassions, runner up in fide grand prix on multiple occasions
Harika: semi finalist in world women's chess on multiple occassions
Harikrishna: junior world championship
Vidith Gujarathi: has won the Biel chess championship that among Indians only Anand had won before him and has been a quarter finalist both in the World Cup and Fisher Random Chess Championship

[Atithee]

Thanks, I was looking for men’s winners and you provided some. It still seems underwhelming to me, and I’ll stop my query here. I appreciate all the responses.

[rajitghosh]

Also Abhijeet Gupta among boys and Harika and Soumya Swaminathan among girls have won the world junior championship

[prasen9]

I’m sorry; but these don’t seem huge accomplishments for me. And, I was asking more in terms of individual achievements. When I say huge, I mean do not seem commensurate with the rankings bonanza. Again, it’s me. If others feel these are great, I will accept their position. Thanks for putting a summary together, Prasen.

You can say that #3 in the world is not a huge accomplishment. We will beg to differ. Most people would say winning a bronze in a team championship in a very competitive game/sport is a big deal.

But if you say that winning only a couple of bronzes in so many years is not that great legacy, that I will agree with. Which shows that we were collectively not that good in chess with the exception of Vishy. It is only recently that we have a whole bunch of promising youngsters and I think we will see more such wins in the future.

The rankings bonanza has just started to happen. And the improved results have started to happen. As someone pointed out in the other thread, three out of the five are between 15 and 20 years old or something like that. Also, the rankings bonanza is not that great. If you want to win the top international tournaments you have to be among the very top. We do not have anyone. Random upsets seldom happen in chess because of the format and the game. Even if it happens in a game or two, sustaining it over 8-10 games in a top-tier tournament or the world championship, etc. is hard.

Compare it to the U.S. They have a #5, #6, #8 and a #9. Now with that, they can perhaps think of an upset win. We have a #12, #23, #24, #29, #35, #63, #66. Apart from Anand, the others have no shot at winning a major tournament now. Actually, a #12 also does not really have a hope of winning a major. Hope they improve and a couple at least can get into the top 10. So their achievements are actually very consistent with their rankings.

Actually the ranking system in chess is pretty good. It is hard for someone to be over-ranked or under-ranked for long. The rankings follow the achievements.

[Sin Hombre]

athithee - you have to think of it as eras.

Anand was our first GM - we had no chess culture before him (I know the two names before him but let's not go all PKB here).

The first Anand inspired generation was the Hari / Koneru / Harika generation. Hari maxed out at a career best ranking of #11 , Humpy was the women's #2 for a long time and Harika reached #6. All 3's accomplishments were commiserate with these ranking highs.

This first Anand inspired generation only had inspiration but no facilities. All the tier-2 players from this generation from RB Ramesh, Sandipan Chanda, Abhijit Kunte, Srinath Narayanan etc went into coaching.

Anand also got a second win later in this career winning World Championships from 2005 to 2011.

What do you get when you have both inspiration (Anand's WC wins) and good coaching? That's always the recipe for big success.

The second Anand inspired generation which is stronger than any chess generation we have had before. And maybe none of them will reach Anand's peaks (Anand is arguably the 5th or 6th greatest of all time) but we will have multiple top-10 players for the first time.

[rajitghosh]

A lot of the Indian players play in the European leagues. They have improved their ratings playing in these. However, in the big events they have flattered to deceive. Players like Hari, Sasi, Abhijeet, Surya, Sandipan have little to show for their efforts. Negi who I believe was a great talent retired to pursue academics. I think the future hinges on Vidit, Pragga, Adhiban, Arjun and Gukesh.

[Atithee]

Most of these follow up posts bolster my view the way I see it. I really do appreciate the finer points being shared.

[Dinakaran]

Most of us players are imports due to their money power unlike India, who are home grown

[prasen9]

A lot of the Indian players play in the European leagues. They have improved their ratings playing in these. However, in the big events they have flattered to deceive. Players like Hari, Sasi, Abhijeet, Surya, Sandipan have little to show for their efforts. Negi who I believe was a great talent retired to pursue academics. I think the future hinges on Vidit, Pragga, Adhiban, Arjun and Gukesh.

I think in the big events they played apropos to their rankings. I do not think someone played that badly such that we can conclude they were over-ranked. Maybe I missed something? Do you have anyone who did not play in accordance to their ranking across multiple tournaments?

The problem is we over-value and over-expect from our players. A world #35 is a world #35, i.e., supposed to lose and be at the bottom when in a tournament all the players are better than them by rankings. And, because of the ELO system, the higher ranked players play sparingly against the significantly lower ranked players.

[rajitghosh]

There are two ways of looking at the performance of Indians.
One is the world championship cycle. Whenever it is not a knockout event it typically comprises of the Candidates, the Grand Prix Cycle and the World Cup. In the knockout World Championships and World Cups there has been Indian participation regularly. Except Anand noone has progressed beyond the quarter finals on the men's side. In the Grand Prix Cycle Hari and Vidith have played with a 12th place by Vidith being the best performance. Except Anand noone has played in the Candidates.
In the big tournaments the likes of Linares, Corus, Dortmund, Biel and so on while there have been some good performances in the 2nd and 3rd divisions of Corus (now Tata Steel) and Biel very few have done anything of note in the main tournament exception being Vidith who has won the Biel Grandmasters event. Since the Tatas sponsor the Wijk Aan Zee event Indians have been receiving invitations and many of won the Challenger or 2nd division event noone has won the main tournament other than Anand.
I would not take Olympiads too seriously. In fact many top players routinely skip Olympiads as they lose rating points. Anand hardly played in the Olympiads.

[Sin Hombre]

prasen keeps mentioning this but it goes on deaf ears.

Hari who was the best of the 2nd generation, has a career best ranking of 11 and has mostly been in the 20s.

Amritraj wasn't winning GS or reaching finals with a similar resume in tennis either. This is expected.


@rajit you keep mixing up generations. Vidit and Adhiban have peaked and are not part of the Arjun, Gukesh, Pragg, Nihal gen.

I would not take Olympiads too seriously. In fact many top players routinely skip Olympiads as they lose rating points. Anand hardly played in the Olympiads.

This is patently false. Russia, China and the US who are the top-3 countries all take it very seriously. Anand didn't since he did not think India could win.

[Kumar]

This is patently false. Russia, China and the US who are the top-3 countries all take it very seriously. Anand didn't since he did not think India could win.

I am a huge fan of Anand, but i hated the fact that Anand routinely skipped olympiad. One r alleged reason was that he was afraid of losing his ELO points (the player of Vishy caliber had to pretty much win all his games to ensure that he does not lose his ranking points).

[prasen9]

Except Anand noone has progressed beyond the quarter finals on the men's side.

Because we have not had anyone close to #8 apart from Anand. So nobody really played drastically above their ranking, not under.

Also, like Sin Hombre said, Anand did not play Olympiads because he had very weak compatriots and there was no chance for India to win anything with that team. So, he would lose ELO points - almost guaranteed and that would hurt him get into tournaments, etc. Not much gain and loss guaranteed. Now, if India had a chance, he most possibly would have played, although one never knows.