Indian Chess GMs: 100 and Counting – Why Becoming a Grandmaster Is Now Just a Small Step

LR: First and 100th GM of India – Viswanathan Anand and Anuj Shrivatri. When Viswanathan Anand became Grandmaster in Coimbatore in 1988, achieving this used to be a huge step towards professional chess. It’s a footnote now. India, who completed a GM century on Sunday – with Anuj Shrivatri the latest to win at the ASEAN Plus in the Philippines on Sunday – should be seen accordingly.Even though FIDE has relaxed the rules to get the title of GM, players still have to find shortcuts and easier ways to add honors to their resume. These include withdrawing multiple times, withdrawing and re-entering from pairs of the same tournament, withdrawing from one tournament in one city and traveling to another city the next day. All this to protect the Elo drop trying to reach Elo 2500. Or playing soft tournaments in Europe.However, becoming a GM is still a task and further progress is even more difficult. Frequent and lucrative tournaments are only available to players above Elo 2650. Unless you reach Elo 2550 by the age of 17, this ultimate push is unlikely. Although it is possible to become a GM before the age of 18, it is a full-time job with escalating costs and huge compromises in academic and social life.Only 51 Indian GMs have maintained a rating above Elo 2500. The current range of GM ratings in India is from Elo 2763 (Pragg) to Elo 2222 (Saptarshi Roy Choudhary). There are nine GMs in India aged 15-25 who are below the minimum GM Elo rating of 2500, with the lowest being Prithu Gupta at 2398, India’s No.142 and not among the top 3000 players in the world.When Anand became GM, there were less than 200 active GMs rated above Elo 2500, now there are about 550. And if we count GMs who have fallen below Elo 2500, there are about 750 more GMs worldwide. The situation is dramatically better for women who manage to achieve the title of GM after hardships including social and emotional challenges.“In general, players have to pay huge amounts as coaching fees and most of the CEOs today are unemployed or unsponsored. There are many others who spend these kinds of funds but never cross the Elo 1900 rating. Private sponsors and coaching funding is very small compared to the contenders trying to win titles in India,” Pravin Thipsay, former coach of the seven-time national champion, told TOI.“It is sad that, unlike the Soviet Chess Federation or the Russian Chess Federation or the Chinese Chess Federation, the AICF has not attempted to create a system where GMs and other deserving players are absorbed in training assignments or any other form of service through which a player can obtain reasonable financial benefits,” he added.