How Nihal Sarin became the first Indian chess player to get invited to Esports Nations Cup: Will he be the only one?

NEW DELHI: It’s been a week of double joy for Indian grandmaster Nihal Sarin. First, his qualification for the Esports Chess World Cup became official. Shortly after, the 21-year-old became the first Indian to secure a direct qualifying invite to the main event of the inaugural Esports Nations Cup (ENC) 2026.While Nihal and his S8UL teammate Aravindh Chithambaram have both successfully qualified for the upcoming Esports World Cup (EWC) Chess Main Event 2026, Nihal stands alone as India’s first direct invite ENC tournament to represent Team India Esports.He earned his spot in the Champions Chess Tour (CCT) 2025-2026 official rankings thanks to his elite performance.

Looking at the CCT rankings, the main confusion arises that Aravindh Chithambaram has a staggering 1,017 points compared to Nihal’s 139 points. Still, Aravindh missed the direct invite from ENC. The answer lies in where those points were earned during the eligibility period (September 2, 2025 – May 26, 2026). To ensure that players who qualify directly for the World Esports Championship stay at the top of the table, 1,000 points are manually added to their CCT ranking.However, the ENC selection criteria strictly evaluated individual performance in specific online qualifying events. Most of Aravindh’s points came from his offline win at DreamHack Atlanta, an event that ENC did not take into account when selecting direct invitees.A similar situation befell 2026 Candidates participant Andrey Espiponka, who also finished in the top four at the DreamHack Atlanta event. Although he collected more total CCT points, his points came mostly from offline qualifiers. As a result, a direct invitation from Russia was given to Ian Nepomniachtchi.Nihal, on the other hand, moved confidently on the CCT online circuit. His strong campaign included the Speed ​​Chess Championship (SCC) 2025, the Chess.com Open (CCO) 2026 and the Titled Tuesday Grand Prix (TTGP) splits.After narrowly missing out on CCO direct qualifying by a single spot, he scored a crucial 100 ranking points, adding to his consistent performances in the TTGP Fall, Winter and Spring splits. Finishing with 139 points, he moved into the top six in the official ENC Chess rankings.

ENC 2026 features a rigorous model designed to maximize global representation. Direct invites are limited to exactly one player per country or territory, awarded to the highest ranked individual on the leaderboard.Total representation in each country is limited to two players for the finals. As Nihal has secured a direct invite, another Indian player can still qualify through the regional competition.In addition to the 64 direct invitees, which include international grandmasters such as Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Hikaru Nakamura (USA) and Alireza Firouzja (France), 61 players will qualify through regional qualifiers run by Chess.com. The Indian regional qualifiers are scheduled for June 6-7 and June 13-14, 2026. The last three slots will be filled using wildcards.The inaugural edition of the Main Event will be held from November 2-8, 2026 and will feature 128 players competing for a prize pool of USD 600,000 (~INR 5.7 million).On the motivation to include chess in ENC during an exclusive interaction with TimesofIndia.com, Fabian Scheuermann, Chief Games Officer at The Esports Foundation, said, “Platforms like Chess.com and Twitch, along with creators and a new generation of grandmasters, have brought chess into the same digital landscape as esports creators and share the gaming culture of many other professional players and well-known players. This allows the audience to instinctively engage with it.”Scheuermann also admitted that the use of direct ranking, regional qualifiers and wild cards was intentional, adding: “We were very conscious of building a system that reflected both performance and opportunity. Half the field is made up entirely of players qualifying through the CCT rankings, limited to one player per nation to ensure both equal representation and the presence of many of the best chess players in the world.”“When you put all three together, you get a field that is elite and globally representative.”