'It will bring the next wave of awareness and pursuit of excellence from people who want to take chess as a game or a competitive sport or even as a career.'
Three world champion titles -- classical and rapid -- two team gold medals at the Budapest Olympiad and several individual board medals, 2024 can certainly go down in history as the Gold Year of Indian Chess.
It was also this year that a second Indian Grandmaster Arjun Kumar Erigaisi touched the ELO rating of 2,800. The first one was chess legend Viswanathan Anand.
There is also one dubious reason for that classification.
The first and foremost reason, the 18-year-old Grandmaster D Gukesh became the 18th and the youngest World Chess Champion. He defeated China's GM Ding Liren to wrest the title in the match in Singapore.
Incidentally, India became the second country in the world to give two World Chess Champions and the first one being the USSR/Russia.
In June Woman GM Divya Deshmukh won the World Juniors Girl's Chess Championship.
Closing the year in style was 37-year-old GM Koneru Humpy who won the World Women's Rapid title for a second time.
The one dubious reason for the 'golden year' is that it was only this year it came to light that the 22 carat 81 gram Milind Kibe Gold Medal -- now valued at about Rs 5.71 lakh -- awarded to the National Champion is missing.
Be that as it may, what will be the impact of Gukesh becoming the World Chess Champion on Indian chess?
Responds International Master and chess coach V Saravanan: "It is going to be excellent, especially in South India and in Chennai. It will bring the next wave of awareness and pursuit of excellence from people who want to take chess as a game or a competitive sport or even as a career."
When Anand became World Chess Champion, India witnessed a chess revolution with more and more parents wanting their kids to look at chess. They also looked at chess -- a brain game -- as an additional tool for their kids to achieve excellence in academics.
That resulted in the emergence of a chess ecosystem -- chess board makers, coaches, chess arbiters and others -- in India.
Given India's population and the large number of kids taking to the game and the emergence of chess software, the global scene began to change with a lot of young chess players from the country competing in global events to gain ELO points and IM and GM titles.
The number of Indian IMs and GMs began to grow. At the Chess Olympiads, the Indian team's performance began to improve and peaked with two gold medals at Budapest Olympiad.
Despite the existence of huge demand for good rated tournaments, the All India Chess Federation did not promote holding of such tournaments within the country.
So Indian players had to travel abroad to play in rated tournaments spending lakhs of rupees by raising funds.
"Parents used to settle their dues with the prize monies won by their kids," a GM and a coach said.
Now there are three young superstars in Indian chess -- GMs Arjun Kumar Erigaisi (World No. 4, ELO Rating 2,801), Gukesh (World No. 5, 2,783) and R Praggnanandhaa (World No. 17, ELO Rating 2,737) and ranked third in the juniors category in the world -- who are dominating world chess.
Former world champion Anand, ranked 10th in the world with an ELO Rating 2,750 is still a force to reckon with.
In the girls section India's International Master and Woman GM Divya Deshmukh is ranked second with an ELO Rating of 2,490.
In the women's section GM Koneru Humpy with an ELO Rating of 2,523 in ranked 6th in the world.
"I will be happy if the AICF gets a vision now. There has been no big chess activity in the last one year. And whatever happened was due to private initiative. The AICF should at least start fulfilling the promises made and start with a clean slate," Saravanan said.
According to Saravanan, it was due to private initiatives that upcoming talents were trained by legendary players of the chess world.
With Indian chess players orbiting at the top level in the world will brand owners now queue up before them?
Answers Brand Expert Harish Bijoor, founder of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc: "Gukesh is the new star on the horizon. Brands now have a new star to head to. This does mean that brands will bet on a young horse as opposed to an old war horse of chess."
"I expect brands to bet hard and deep on Gukesh," Bijoor added.
"I have been a brand ambassador for some brands in the past. Only now are corporates looking at chess players as their brand ambassadors," Humpy said.
"I hope more and more sports management companies come forward to bridge the gap between chess players and brand owners," Saravanan said.
According to GM Pravin Thipsay, there is a possibility of corporates looking at chess players as brand ambassadors.
But probably only Anand and Gukesh might get a call. Perhaps Divya Deshmukh, Vantika Agrawal, Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanandhaa may also get a chance. It will be individual based.
The corporates might mostly look at only Gukesh and Anand, Thipsay said.
Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at venkatacharijagannathan@gmail.com
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
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