Visual representation of Pravin Thipsay’s experience (AI generated photo) NEW DELHI: Cyprus, an island nation in the eastern Mediterranean, will be home to some of the best classical chess over the next fortnight as it hosts both the Open and Women’s categories of the 2026 Candidates tournament from 28 March. The tournament, which serves as the only path to a World Championship match, has borne the weight of months of mounting anticipation from the global chess community. Still, the atmosphere around the event is heavy, and its repeat is marred by pre-tournament uncertainties leading to regional tensions in the Middle East.Anxiety has already claimed a significant participant. India’s veteran grandmaster Koneru Humpy pulled out of the women’s tournament just days before the opening ceremony. Concerns radiated elsewhere; World No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura has raised the alarm over the lack of stable power in the region, while the recent cancellation of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) event in the region due to security risks has cast a shadow over FIDE’s planning.
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From No Laptop to Chess World Cup Dreams: Exclusive Interview with GM Pranesh MIn response, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) issued a “Frequently Asked Questions on Safety and Logistics” five days before the start, dismissing the risks as “extremely low and overestimated”. But for the player, the board is never truly isolated from the world.How does it feel to be calculating grand strategies when you know global tensions are brewing just outside the walls?In September 1978, a young Pravin Thipsay landed in Tehran, decades away from becoming India’s third grandmaster, alongside former national champion Muhammad Rafiq Khan. They were there to play, but the Iran they entered was a country that breathed its last breath of monarchy.
Shah Mohammad Reshotoa Pahlavi (AP Photo)
The pro-Western monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was crumbling under the weight of massive civil resistance. On September 8, 1978, a day known as “Black Friday,” the military opened fire on protesters in Tehran, leaving hundreds dead and marking the point of no return for the regime.“Well, when I was young and I was in Iran during the Shah’s regime, and it was after September 8, 1978, when the students were demonstrating,” Thipsay told TimesofIndia.com. “So when we actually entered the city, we saw tanks on the road, there were other problems, but the important thing was that we saw tanks on the road and it was a concern for about a day.”In the 1970s, the chess world was a smaller, more isolated fraternity. Players traveled to distant lands with little more than a pocket kit and a few letters of introduction. There were no smart phones, no social media channels to provide minute by minute updates on troop movements.“We thought it was a little weird, but we also didn’t have access to the news and it was our first time going to Iran,” Thipsay recalled. “We didn’t know much. I was also very young. There were Russians and Americans playing there, other Filipinos, other players. So I think we lived in our own world.”
We found it a little strange, but we also had no access to the news and we were going to Iran for the first time
Pravin Thipsay, Indian Grandmaster
The tournament was held at the Olympic Village in Tehran. “It was very far from the city and where there was limited access, and we rarely went out,” he explained. This physical separation was compounded by a complete linguistic and digital blackout. “We didn’t get any news about the outside world because in those days, in 1978, nobody spoke English in Iran and the newspapers were all in the Iranian language. So we couldn’t get any information. There is no television,” he told the website.Today, gamers are hyper-connected; they follow geopolitical shifts as closely as breaking news. But in 1978 it wasn’t like that.“Even when I went to the World Junior Championships, I had no way to contact my parents by phone. I just wrote some letters. I never got answers because it took a lot of time,” Thipsay noted.
Ayatollah Khomeini (AP Photo)
In the weeks following the tournament, the Iranian Revolution gained momentum, eventually leading to the Shah’s exile in January 1979 and the rise of the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Khomeini. “There was no direct violence seen in front of us and the tanks were only there to control them and prevent the crowds from gathering,” the 66-year-old said. “I think I looked at it, it didn’t really affect me at the time. I don’t know if it affects me today or if it affects the other players, but that’s the only experience I have, we just played a tournament.”While revolution did not penetrate the Olympic Village, the elements did. “We didn’t do very well because it was very cold,” Thipsay admitted. “I think that’s the main reason. It was surprisingly quite cold at night.”READ ALSO: Exclusive to Koneru Humpa after withdrawal of candidates: “Would FIDE organize tournaments in Kashmir?”However, the Iranian players must have felt the brunt of the coming storm. Under the new regime that followed, chess was eventually banned for several years, considered “un-Islamic”, before being reinstated in the late 1980s. But in the fall of 1978, the silence between locals and foreigners painted a clear picture of the global dilemma as Thipsay concluded: “We, me and Rafiq Khan, or the Russians, the Americans, the Filipinos were not affected by it. And the Iranians, if they were, we don’t know, but they never discussed these things with us.”
