CHENNAI: The promised land is here. The future is now. India may have invented chess but they never played like they owned the board as the rest of the world surged ahead.
Not anymore. These days, India are the game's top dogs. A bunch of teenagers have fulfilled the prophecy way before their time. Now, they have started winning titles. Like they did on Sunday. India's Open and women's teams made history as they claimed double gold for the first time at the Olympiad, one of the biggest honours available in the board game currently.
If Viswanathan Anand winning the first world title was Indian chess's moon landing event, September 22, 2024, will go down as the day when they formally established a colony.
In almost 100 years of the Olympiad, the biggest team competition in the game, both Indian sides were never in contention for the major medal. Over the last two weeks in Budapest, that changed. Both teams used the 64 light and dark coloured squares as a blank canvas to bring to life a crazy dream.
On Sunday, that fever dream was realised.
Just before the Olympiad began, Srinath Narayanan, the captain of the Open team, believed the team would start as favourites for gold. Even though they were seeded second in terms of ratings, he was fairly confident that, other things remaining constant, they would all come back with the shiniest of metal discs hanging from their necks.
"I think we have a good chance of winning gold," he had said.
When the team reached Budapest, the focus had entirely shifted to building up team spirit. Working on their chess games, while important, was going to take a back seat. The GM also had one ground rule; there would be no talk of how they were the favourites for gold.
"We don't really mention or talk about it," he had said. "I would say gold is like the process of checkmate in chess. You know the goal is to eventually checkmate but in order to do that, you need to do a number of smaller things, develop your pieces, control your centre and the attention goes towards accumulating your smaller goals.
"We have the destination in sight but it's something we don't obsess over. Everyone has an idea of what needs to happen to win gold."
While Narayanan was saying this was the template for the Open team, the women also followed this to reap the ultimate reward. On air in ChessBase India's YouTube live feed during the 11th and final round on Sunday, one of the assistant coaches had revealed how the focus was taking it match by match.
Even if Narayanan was one of the few voices urging caution on Saturday night, India's chess fraternity was already celebrating. However, inside the team meeting, they themselves were in celebration mode.
"Already in the celebrations mode," Gukesh told chess24 after the last round. "I must admit that after yesterday's game (Saturday), I was super excited. We were all very happy but we forced ourselves to come here and do the job."
But the 18-year-old, who will face Ding Liren in the final of the World Championship in Singapore in November-December, had a sense of unfinished business with respect to the Olympiad.
"This tournament for me, especially after what happened last time (in Mahabalipuram in 2022), we were so close to winning team gold, this time I thought no matter what, we were going to do whatever it takes to win team gold. I didn't really think about the individual gold."
Even at this young age, the Tamil Nadu teen is all about processes. He had come around to that conclusion after a very challenging end to 2023. His results started improving, in a roundabout way, after he had stopped worrying about them.
It kind of showed at the Olympiad. Eight wins and two draws for an overall performance rating of 3056 from board 1. To put this number into some sort of perspective, Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Magnus Carlsen, the silver and bronze winners in the top board, had a performance rating of 2884 and 2810 respectively.
In this context, it was interesting to listen to Praggnanandhaa, sandwiched between Gukesh and Erigaisi in Board 2. "It just took all pressure off me," the other teen had told FIDE.
"Seeing those two guys, sitting in between them, I was almost sure they will win. So that I can just play normally, because I know we will most likely win."
In 2022, India won individual gold in Board 2 as well, Nihal Sarin claiming that honour. The last two weeks, Sarin has watched it unfold from afar while preparing for the Global Chess League (GCL).
It goes back to the point about depth in Indian chess right now. "What’s the nice thing is that competition within India is fierce itself," Anand had told TNIE a few days ago.
"You maybe one of the best players in the world but you may still be fighting for a spot in India. That will keep everyone on their toes. I would say next 5-10 years we can look forward to, it’s going to be great to be a chess fan in India."
