Viswanathan Anand has no qualms in admitting he mis-calculated. Just three years ago, in December 2020, when he had started the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA), he remembers thinking that the players he had taken under his wings — Praggnanandhaa, D Gukesh and Nihal Sarin — would need five or six years to enter the elite club of 2700-rated players. It’s an elusive club in the sport, with current membership of 35 people.
Gukesh reached the fabled mark in July last year within two years of Anand’s prediction. Pragg followed in July this year. Arjun Erigaisi is also a part of the club, with Nihal just six points away.
“The reason I say this is a golden generation is because all of these guys are still teenagers — with the exception of Arjun, who became 20 two days ago — which means, very conservatively, for the next 10 years at every top tournament as Indians we can hope for one of our players to be there. It’s a great time to be an Indian chess fan,” Anand told journalists on the sidelines of the Tata Steel Chess India tournament.
On Monday, Pragg had told journalists at Kolkata that he feels he has the potential to be a world champion. It’s a measure of how much the teenager has grown in confidence.
“It’s good that he feels this confident. But again, you have to prove it, and very few people do. I don’t say that to mock him or anything. He will need to be aware that there are a lot of tough steps ahead. Even if your odds are very good, you will need to pull it off. Because only one person will get through and it’s a very high bar,” says India’s first grandmaster.
Until the generation of prodigies are ready to clear that ‘very-high bar’, there are a few more steps they need to take, believes Vishy.
“The (next step) is akin to the difference between being a tourist at a place and living there. It’s nice to qualify for the first time. Then you have to be consistent, you have to do it regularly. If you keep on playing the Candidates, and you’re established there, that’s the next step (before making it to the World Championship). Maybe with all of these guys that’s the challenge, to bring consistency into it,” he says.
He also warns that while the jumps these guys have made are ‘spectacular’ now the other top players will be working on figuring them out.
“This is a very talented group of individuals. Whether they outperform the previous generation (of Indians), we’ll see. Once they smell the world championship, they’ll want it,” says the man who has worn the world champion’s crown five times.
Non-stop chess
While a lot has been spoken of how the current prodigies started very young, got good coaching early on and got a lot of early competitive exposure thanks to the internet, Anand points out just how much chess the current lot have been playing. He says he has around 4000 recorded games in the database. Six-seven years ago, he could glance at the database and could tell which player was young based on how many games they had played: those who had around 800 games against their names would inevitably be young. Today players are adding 500 to 600 games a year, thanks to the game going online.
With the current generation playing so much chess, there is also the fear of them getting fatigued.
“Fatigue is a big part of chess in modern times. The players will have to pay a lot of attention to physical fitness. All the top players in the world follow it, these guys will need to do it as well,” he says.
“There is such a thing as too much chess. They will need to learn to stop once in a while. Right now they’re hungry for chess. The schedule they have coming up is very demanding. But if they want it, they should go for it. It’s also different when you’re a teenager. When you’re 19, nothing matters.”
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Even though the next generation has made the leap and is on its way to fill his massive shoes, Anand is always asked if he still wants to contend. If the current generation’s emergence will push him to play full tilt. He points out that last year he played seven classical games. This year he’ll play even fewer.
“Part of me is tempted to play more games all the time. Part of me also remembers why I eased off. There’s a tension. But essentially, (if I wanted to be a fully active player again) I will end up working harder and harder to keep up but will get less and less gains. Like every other sport, chess is a physical sport. I actually like these other roles. I think about it a lot, sure. But in the end I am happy where I am.
“I don’t feel myself in competition anymore. I’m very happy that I can step aside and India is being well represented in elite tournaments. This is all you can hope for. I would rather have this than something else. This is a very good situation. It’s kind of the way you want to leave a sport.”
