Explained | Chess Olympiad: Origins of the event, rules & India’s rise to top seed and host

The story so far: India continues to shine on the ninth day of the 44th Chess Olympiad, despite the India 1 women’s team suffering a setback, losing to Poland. In the open category, India B has surpassed India—both are currently at rank 2 and rank 4 respectively. The top-seeded women’s team has now slipped to second place.

After Round 9, Uzbekistan leads the score table with 16 points, followed by India 2 (15), Armenia (also 15), India (14), and the Netherlands (also 14), as per FIDE’s official standings.

The 44th edition of the FIDE Chess Olympiad 2022 is currently being hosted by India for the first time. Kicking off on July 29, the event is being held at the Four Points by Sheraton Mamallapuram Resort and Convention Centre in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and will end on August 10. With Russia and China not participating in the event, India with its large contingent of thirty players aims to bag the event.

History of the Chess Olympiad

Founded in 1924 in Paris, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) organizes the biennial Chess Olympiad along with the host nation and several other sponsors. The first official event was hosted in 1927 by the United Kingdom in London, with Hungary taking the gold medal, followed by Denmark and England.

Since then, the event was mainly hosted by European countries till 1986 when United Arab Emirates hosted the 27th edition in Dubai. Other Asian countries to host the event are the Philippines (1992) and China (2021 – virtual), apart from Eurasian countries like Turkey/Turkiye (2000), Azerbaijan (2016) and Russia (1956, 1994, 1998, 2010). While Russia was scheduled to host the 2022 edition, FIDE shifted the event to Chennai after Moscow invaded its neighbour Ukraine.

The Olympiad follows the 11-round Swiss format with two nations’ teams (four players and one reserve) competing against each other on four corresponding boards. With ninety minutes per game, players are allowed thirty minutes after move 40. Each team gets one game point per win, 0.5 game points per draw and zero points for a loss. At the end of the game, the team with the most game points is awarded two match points for winning, one for a draw and zero for a loss. The standings of playing nations are calculated as per match points and the top spot is crowned champion.

India’s performance in Chess Olympiads

The modern game of chess has evolved from the ancient Indian war game called ‘Chaturanga’ played in the 7 ^th century. Similar to the current game, different pieces in the ‘Chaturanga’ have different powers, and victory was based on the king. This game transformed into the ‘Shatranj’ which is popularly played in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and South-Central Asia since 600 AD.

After gaining Independence from the British Raj, India first participated in the FIDE Chess Olympiad held at Moscow in 1956 and finished 27th. Since then, India has bettered its game, winning bronze in 2014, gold in 2020, and bronze in 2021. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held virtually in 2020 and 2021.

In 2020, India and Russia were jointly crowned champion because the result of two games in the second finals match was affected by a net outage in Cloudflare servers. Both Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh lodged a complaint with FIDE regarding connectivity issues. In 2021, India lost to US – who went on to win the event – settling for a bronze medal. Currently, India has 74 Grandmasters — the highest title awarded to a player by FIDE — of which many are under 20 years— and 125 international masters.

This year, India — which is hosting the event — is seeded second after the United States in the Open category. Led by Srinath Narayanan, the Open team A comprises Harikrishna Pentala, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, Erigaisi Arjun, S.L. Narayanan and Sasikiran Krishnan. Open team B comprises Nihal Sarin, Gukesh D, Adhiban B, Praggnanandhaa R and Sadwani R. The women’s team A – which is top-seeded— comprises of Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, Vaishali R, Tania Sachdev and Bhakti Kulkarni. Team B comprises Vantika A, Soumya S, Mary Ann Gomes, Padmini Rout and Divya Deshmukh. Abhijit Kunte is the captain of the India A team.

Being the hosts, India is allowed to field three teams in each category. The Open team C comprises Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Karthikeyan Murali, SP Sethuraman, Abhijeet Gupta and Abhimanyu Puranik and the women’s team C comprise Eesha Karavade, M Varshini Sahiti, Pratyusha Bodda, P V Nandhidhaa and Varsha Vasnawala. The teams are being mentored by five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, who has decided against playing the event.

India’s elevation to host

FIDE was put in a quandary when the 2022 Chess Olympiad host – Russia – invaded Ukraine in February, putting the event in jeopardy. As FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich began searching for a new host, the All India Chess Federation (AICF) secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan told him that India was ‘open to organising any chess event’. Within twenty-four hours, Mr. Chauhan confirmed that India would host the 44 ^th Chess Olympiad – bringing the event to Asia after thirty years.

Deploying 37 IAS officers, Tamil Nadu sanctioned Rs 92 crores for conducting the Olympiad and chose Mamallapuram – the coastal town with historical and archaeological value. Hall 2, which houses the highest number of boards, was erected in just forty days. The Olympiad mascot ‘Thambi’ was unveiled soon and days before the event, music director A.R Rahman released the ‘Chess Anthem’ featuring Chennai’s Napier Bridge, decorated to resemble a chess board.

Throwing open the event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had praised the speed with which the DMK government worked to organize the event and reiterated Tamil Nadu’s historic connection to chess by invoking Lord Sathuranga Vallabhanathar – an incarnation of Lord Shiva who is thought to be an expert in chess. Mr. Stalin too highlighted that 36 per cent of Indian Grandmasters are from Tamil Nadu and hence Chennai was dubbed the ‘Chess capital of India’.

In all, 1400 players from across the globe representing 187 countries are competing on 700 boards at the Four Points by Sheraton Mamallapuram Resort and Convention Centre in the temple town.