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Chess Olympiad: India have crowns to defend
The Open team, seeded second behind the USA, is packed with star players but the competition won’t make things easy for them
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Bengaluru: Being the team to beat is an odd burden in sport. India will carry it to the Fide Chess Olympiad, which begins in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on Wednesday, along with a line-up that makes the ‘defending champion’ tag feel both deserved and demanding.
The Open team, seeded second behind the USA, is packed with star players: reigning world champion D Gukesh, the year’s most impressive player R Praggnanandhaa, the chaotic, creative genius Arjun Erigaisi, Nihal Sarin and Vidit Gujrathi.
The top-seeded women’s team will have Women’s World Championship challenger Vaishali R, reigning World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh, two-time world rapid champion Koneru Humpy, as well as Vantika Agrawal and Savitha Shri Baskar.
“In the pre-2700-2750 rated Indian team, it was not required to have a huge level of secrecy because players were not facing each other at high-stakes events. But once that happened, we couldn’t discuss openings and certain things as freely as we could have when they were at a slightly lower level.”
Things were especially tough in the 2023 Asian Games, Narayanan revealed. “The tension between the players was at its peak then because it was the first time that we had teammates being rivals with each other directly and the Candidates cycle was ending in just a few months from then.”
Narayanan said, they came up with a system of having one coach per player to maintain privacy in preparation.
The US will start as the Open top seed by rating in the 11-round classical tournament ahead of defending champions India and hosts Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan have World Championship challenger Javokhir Sindarov and Nodirbek Abdusattorov, leading their line-up.
Then, there’s the tiny matter of the board order. With four players making up one team, where each player sits can matter. The challenge is to get the strategy and order right and make the most of what each player brings. It is likely that the top two boards could be between Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh with Arjun on Board 3 and Nihal on Board 4 in the Open section. “What I look at is, where a player can exert maximum pressure,” Naryanan said.
In the women’s section, Vaishali and Divya could take up the top two boards with Humpy on the third board and Vantika on Board 4.
For Gukesh, who has been struggling with form, the Olympiad is his final tournament appearance before the World Championship in November. “He’s been pretty chill in the last couple of months, not as serious and intense as he was earlier. He’s been playing some turf cricket and picking up a hobby or two,” Narayanan said.
