ChessBase 17 - Mega package - Edition 2024
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The April 2017 FIDE rating list included 1552 grandmasters, of which 1517 were male and 35 female. Let us start by taking a look at the number of grandmasters in the top fifty chess playing countries. The table below is sorted by the number of GMs – the first column gives you the ranking by average rating of the top ten players. For instance China is second because its top ten have an average rating of 2710. Germany, which has more than twice as many GMs, is in place 14, because the top ten GMs average just 2624. Clicking on a country will give you a list of all the titled players – it is long for Russia and Germany. These stats were provided by FIDE and represent the status for July 2017.
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The number of grandmasters in India is growing at an exponential rate. When ChessBase India started towards the end of 2015, we had 39 grandmasters. Within one year and eight months we have seen the number increase to 49. While, we do not take the full credit for this (!), we do believe that the trend is only going to get better.
Abhimanyu Puranik became India's 49th grandmaster on 21st of August when he scored his final GM norm at the Abu Dhabi Masters 2017
Now the million Rupee question on everyone's mind is: who will be the 50th grandmaster from India? We pulled out some data from the FIDE website and these are our brightest hopes for future grandmasters (note all players are above 2400 Elo).
| Rank | Name | Title | Rating | Born |
| 30 | Karthikeyan, P. | IM | 2497 | 1990 |
| 33 | Stany, G.A. | IM | 2491 | 1993 |
| 35 | Praggnanandhaa R | IM | 2487 | 2005 |
| 37 | Nihal Sarin | IM | 2485 | 2004 |
| 40 | Thejkumar, M. S. | IM | 2481 | 1981 |
| 47 | Visakh N R | IM | 2458 | 1999 |
| 48 | Prasanna Raghuram Rao | IM | 2455 | 1994 |
| 48 | Swayams, Mishra | IM | 2455 | 1992 |
| 50 | Saptarshi, Roy | IM | 2449 | 1986 |
| 51 | Vignesh N R | IM | 2448 | 1998 |
| 52 | Shyaamnikhil P | IM | 2447 | 1992 |
| 53 | Gusain, Himal | IM | 2446 | 1993 |
| 55 | Das, Sayantan | IM | 2436 | 1997 |
| 56 | Raja Harshit | 2434 | 2001 | |
| 58 | Nitin, S. | IM | 2421 | 1992 |
| 59 | Das, Arghyadip | IM | 2419 | 1985 |
| 62 | Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh | IM | 2410 | 1998 |
| 62 | Satyapragyan, Swayangsu | IM | 2410 | 1982 |
| 64 | Iniyan, P | IM | 2404 | 2002 |
| 64 | Harsha Bharathakoti | IM | 2404 | 2000 |
| 64 | Sai Agni Jeevitesh, J | FM | 2404 | 1998 |
| 67 | Abhishek, Kelkar | IM | 2403 | 1992 |
| 68 | Girish, A. Koushik | IM | 2401 | 1997 |
Three GM norms + 2500 Elo, yet he is not a GM – P. Karthikeyan [photo by Lennart Ootes]
P. Karthikeyan – this man already has passed 2500 Elo and had also made his three GM norms. However, there has been some technical issues with his third norm, which is the reason why he is still an IM. Karthikeyan needs another foreign GM norm to become India's next GM.
M.S. Thejkumar with his wonderful wife Jayashree [photo Thejkumar's facebook page]
I rate M.S. Thejkumar's chances of becoming the grandmaster the highest because he has all the GM norms and a live rating of 2492. He gained eight points at an open tournament in Sri Lanka and 3.5 at the National Challengers 2017 (from where he withdrew due to bad health). He will be taking part in the Kandy Open in Sri Lanka next and there are high chances that he would gain the required eight Elo points. That being said, Thejkumar has been close to GM title for many years now. He achieved his GM norms nearly five years ago. It's highly commendable that he has been able to maintain his level of play and is still just a stone's throw away from the GM title. If he does it, he will become Karnataka's first GM.
IM G.A. Stany from Karnataka [photo by Priyadarshan Banjan]
The man who is in a race with Thej for becoming Karnataka's first GM and India's 50th is G.A. Stany. The 24-year-old has crossed the rating barrier of 2500 and has one GM norm. He needs the more to become a GM.
Praggnanandhaa, the youngest IM in the world [photo by Lennart Ootes]
R.B. Praggnanandhaa is the world's youngest IM, now trying to become the youngest GM. By performing well at the Hoogoveens tournament in Vlissingen recently Praggnanandhaa has surpassed 2500 Elo mark. But he still has to make all his three norms. All that he needs are three good events. This boy could become India's 50th and also the youngest GM in the world and in history!
Nihal Sarin has phenomenal understanding of chess [photo from Nihal's Facebook page]
India's other prodigious talent Nihal Sarin has a hefty rating of 2485 (-2 at the Abu Dhabi Masters). And he also has one GM norm. It is quite possible that Nihal finishes his title in the next few months.
I would rate one of these four players to have the best chance to become India's 50th grandmaster. There are a few more players who are also in the race:
Swayams Mishra from Odisha has all his GM norms and a rating of 2455 [photo by Amruta Mokal]
N.R. Vignesh gained 22 Elo points at the Abu Dhabi Masters taking him to 2470, and he also achieved his second GM norm [photo by Amruta Mokal]
Sagar Shah – Would it be too much to put me in the same league as the above players?! I do have a live rating of 2407 and two GM norms! But number 50 seems to be a little bit too early, I guess! The rate at which GMs are growing in India, I think I should aim to become the 100th grandmaster of the country! [Photo by Amruta Mokal]
A very important question asked by many people is: what is better – having the norms or reaching the rating threshold. Well, with my experience I would say reaching the rating threshold is much better than having the norms. The reason is simple: you need only three good tournaments to achieve your norms, while you need to be playing consistently well over a long period of time in order to reach, let's say 2500 for the GM title.
That being said, having the norms has its own upside. You can play in any tournament and gain rating while for making norms you have to select only norm events. Currently there are only five to six open norm tournaments happening in India. For example Thejkumar has the norms, so now he doesn't have to think about the tournaments to play. He can go to any place and gain rating points.
I have seen many cases of people making three norms and not able to reach the rating threshold, but I haven't seen many who have made it to 2500 Elo and not become GMs. Well, who knows, with the new k factor = 40 rule, we might well witness the trend changing.
We are proud to say that after ChessBase India came into existence India has created ten new GMs. Each of these grandmasters was covered on our newspage. Below are the articles that were published immediately after a player achieving the title and many of them had images which were quite moving. Take for example the one below:
This is Annasaheb Gagare, Shardul Gagare's father, minutes after the boy from Ahmednagar became India's 42nd GM [photo by Priyadarshan Banjan]
I might sound immodest when writing this, but the role of ChessBase India in the growth of chess in the country cannot be underestimated. Reading about various players, getting timely news and updates helps people to learn from others, motivates them to give their best, and last but not the least feel proud that they are newsworthy. Who knows, after reading this article someone would get inspired to become India's 50th grandmaster and surpass all the names mentioned above!
Who do you think will be India's 50th GM? Do let us know in the comments section below. We will come back to this article to see who got it right when India does get its 50th GM.
