Checkmate! India’s emergence as a global chess powerhouse

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Chess World Cup 2025, Batumi, Georgia. Two Indian women sit across a chessboard battling for the crown of World Champion. Kaneru Hampi is a 38-year-old veteran of the world of chess, a Grandmaster from Andhra Pradesh, and two-times World Rapid Chess Champion. Facing her is Divya Deshmukh, a determined and supremely confident 19-year-old from Nagpur, reaching for the sky, with the firm belief that it is firmly within her grasp. A win today will fetch her not just the world crown, but a Grandmaster title for life. On digital screens in over 100 countries, millions of chess enthusiasts watch, transfixed. Whoever prevails today, they are keenly aware, the winner will be India, a juggernaut that is sweeping through the world of chess.

FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich and President of the Georgian Chess Federation & FIDE Special Tasks Director, Akaki Iashvili, awarded Divya Deshmukh the gold medal and the trophy of the FIDE Women’s World Cup 2025.#FIDEWorldCup pic.twitter.com/fDX9h8UVEr

— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) July 28, 2025

The rise of a chess nation

The story of modern Indian chess is often narrated in the backdrop of Viswanathan Anand’s emergence as a star in the chess firmament. When Anand won his first World Championship title in 2000, he shattered the myth that Indians could not challenge the world’s best at this cerebral sport. In the wake of his success, chess academies mushroomed in Chennai and beyond, coaching structures grew robust, and Indian parents, once sceptical of careers beyond engineering, medicine and government jobs, began to encourage their children to take up the sport. Chess coaching centres like Chess Gurukul, run by GM R. B. Ramesh, and the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy emerged to play a pivotal role in honing young talent. These academies provided technical training and prepared players mentally for the rigours of international competition.

Vishshy Anand (Source: Chess.com)

Alongside, the All-India Chess Federation (AICF) stepped up, organising tournaments across the spectrum, both small and big. Eventually, the government, recognising potential, poured in support through the Khelo India scheme, and its associated scholarships began to benefit those with the potential to be the best in the nation. Overall, as GM Ramesh explained in a recent interview, ‘Parental support, cheap travel, government and corporate backing, a relentless work ethic, and constant inspiration from each other,’ were some of the major factors that brought about this revival in the fortunes of chess in India.

But the quantum leap came when chess in India embraced emerging technology and the benefits it brought. Affordable smartphones, cheap data packs, and a vibrant ecosystem of online apps democratised access to world-class training. A child from Kolkata, Lucknow, Nagpur or Madurai could now practice with the world’s best and have their games analysed by AI. In this new era, coaches like GM R.B. Ramesh, Vishnu Prasanna, and Srinath Narayanan, themselves holding the title of grandmasters, switched roles to mentor the next generation, guiding the likes of Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi, and now, Divya Deshmukh.

Chess champions from India

Then came the pandemic, a time when much of the sporting world came to a grinding halt. Chess, however, thrived. From living rooms, often wearing t-shirts and pyjama bottoms, eyes glued on to laptop screens, with access to ever increasing broadband speeds and sharply declining costs, a generation of Indian chess players emerged, seemingly from the woodwork. Unknown Indian talent could now challenge Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, and any number of elite players, piggybacking a rapidly spreading culture of online tournaments.

On the fast track to global chess domination

In 2024, India won both the men’s and women’s team events at the FIDE World Championships. The same year Praggnanandhaa defeated the once invincible Magnus Carlsen, a feat since matched by two other Indians. In 2025, D. Gukesh became the World Champion at the age of 18. Six months before the title clash, as a part of his preparation, Gukesh appointed Paddy Upton as his mental coach to help him win the championship. What is remarkable about this, is that it was the first time a mental coach was part of the team of a World Championship candidate in chess. There is perhaps no better illustration of how far Indian chess has evolved in its ecosystem, preparation and professionalism as a sport.

Vishvanathan Anand, Samay Raina, and D. Gukesh (Source: X)

Chennai continues to be the hotspot of Indian chess, producing more than 30 Grandmasters, with Bengal and Maharashtra close behind. As the average age of India’s chess prodigies drops dramatically, the swirl of pop culture is now helping fan the flames of interest. Every sport needs heroes to entice its next generation to take it up, and chess streamed live by comedians like Samay Raina, is making kings and queens cool for a digital generation. Media and social media attention on events like the Tata Steel India and the Chess Olympiads have brought chess out of smoky clubrooms and into smartphone-adorned palms, making it uber cool to enter what a few years ago may have seemed the domain of nerds.

It’s all-Indian final at this year’s Chess World Cup final (Source: X)

As India’s 88th Grandmaster, Divya Deshmukh, sits holding her black pieces that won her the tiebreaker, tears of joy streaming down her cheeks (see video here), Elizabeth Harmon’s iconic lines from The Queen’s Gambit come to mind, ‘Chess isn’t always competitive. Chess can also be beautiful.’ It can indeed. And in the years to come, when its beauty and appeal spread from a few million to a billion Indians, the greatest sport invented by the human mind to challenge itself will have well and truly found its way back to its intellectual home.

Read more: Divya Deshmukh wins FIDE Women’s World Cup for chess at 19

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