CHENNAI: French Grandmaster Alireza Firouzja continues to lead the standings with a half a point advantage over India’s Arjun Erigaisi after round four of the Chennai Grand Masters 2026 on Sunday. World champion D Gukesh tried his best to find a way past GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov with black pieces but ended up settling for a draw after 41 moves.
While the day did not witness any wins, the 500 odd people who were in attendance for the day's play were excited to meet and greet chess great Viswanathan Anand and Gukesh. Anand also made the first move in the match between Arjun Erigaisi and M Pranesh.
The five-time world champion was pleased with the way the tournament was progressing and had words of comfort for Gukesh who is not playing his best chess at the moment. The chess legend wanted Gukesh to take cues from his brilliant Chess Olympiad show and confidently approach the world championship.
“Gukesh must be disappointed with the result (one loss and three draws) but he will play some more games,'' Anand told this daily. After winning the World Championship, there was a period where Gukesh struggled for form. But Anand, who has been in similar situations, believed he could get out and start winning. “Right now, it feels like we are all beating him on the head with this. He has had a bad streak for a while, but he can snap out of it. Hopefully the Olympiad performance inspires him (Individual gold and team gold),'' opined the chess maestro.
Why Anand stepped down as Vice President
Anand revealed that he stepped down as FIDE vice president to spend time with his family. ''I simply wanted to have more time at home. My son will probably go to university in three years, so I thought these are the years I should be here,'' he said.
While he might not serve in an executive role, Anand said he will continue to contribute to FIDE in other capacities.
Recently, Rathnavel VS became India’s 99th Grandmaster. Anand, who showed the way by becoming first in 1988. ''Some nice coincidences. I remember before the Chennai Olympiad, I mentioned that it would be a nice exclamation point if we reached 75 in the 75th year of independence. And three and a half years later, we are almost at a 100. So that's another 23, 24 added. It's quite a striking pace and I think it's a very nice milestone,'' said Anand.
Anand welcomes the move to have quality tournaments like the current one where some of the best players in the world are in action.
''In my time we had to go abroad a bit, but we also used to have a fair amount of activity. Even in the places where I made my Grandmaster norms were in India. So we were getting chances for our level then and now things have moved along,'' he said.
Results: Round 4: GM H Niemann (1.5) drew with GM A Firouzja (3); GM D Andreikin (2) drew with GM N Sarin (2); GM N Abdusattorov (2) drew with GM D Gukesh (1.5); GM A Erigaisi (2.5) drew with GM M Pranesh (1.5)