India are fast becoming the clear No 1 nation of world chess, with a dominance reminiscent of the legendary USSR teams of the 1950s and 1960s. After Thursday’s eighth round (of 11) at the 188-team Olympiad in Budapest, and a 3.5‑0.5 victory over second placed Iran, India had won every Open match and totalled 16/16 without losing a single game.
Hungary’s Peter Leko put it well: “India’s way too strong. They are very young, very determined, brilliantly prepared, and also have fantastic chemistry, so it’s a very tough team for anyone to beat.”
Leaders with three rounds left: India 16/16, Uzbekistan and Hungary 14, China, United States and Iran 13. England are among 14 teams on 12 points, but are placed 17th due to fewer game points.
In the race for the individual top board gold medal, the world No 5, Gukesh Dommaraju, leads from the world No 6, Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan), the world No 1, Magnus Carlsen (Norway), and the world No 2, Fabiano Caruana (United States).
In the Women’s Olympiad, India won seven matches in a row before a narrow loss to Poland, and this pair now share the lead with Kazakhstan on 14/16, closely followed by the United States, Armenia and Ukraine all on 13/16. England are among 11 teams a point further behind on 12/16.
For the United States, Carissa Yip, 21, and Alice Lee, 14, have conceded only one draw each, so the US women’s team still have a serious chance of a medal, while Yip and Lee are in pole positions for individual golds. England women’s outstanding performers are Jovanka Houska on board two and Harriet Hunt on three, both with 6/7.
India are led by Gukesh, 18, the world title challenger, who has scored 6.5/7. The team’s other star performer, with 7.5/8, is the current world No 4, Arjun Erigaisi, whose Fide rating has risen in the past year from the lower 2700s to the brink of 2800.
Erigaisi, 21, has lacked elite invitations, but has outperformed in competitive opens. In an extensive interview for New in Chess, he explained that his father is a neurosurgeon and his sister a medical student, but he never had that interest so dropped out of college after a year when his chess talent became obvious. He used to be too negatively affected by defeat, before discovering Inner Engineering, a yoga and meditation course, which helped him significantly and sparked his surge into the world elite.
Erigaisi’s manager struck a $1.5m sponsorship deal with Quantbox, a Singapore trading company, so that his full-time coach is Rustam Kasimdzhanov, the 2003 Fide world champion who previously trained Vishy Anand and Caruana. Erigaisi’s mature strategic style is ambitious with both colours, so much so that Carlsen described him as “ a complete madman at the board, he wants to kill you in every game”. In round five at Budapest he instructively defused the dangerous Dragon Sicilian and reached a winning rook endgame.
The near simultaneous advance of Gukesh and Erigaisi to the world top at a decade younger than the Carlsen-Caruana generation raises the prospect that chess in the second half of the 2020s could become an all-Indian duel, a new version of Mikhail Botvinnik v Vasily Smyslov in the 1950s or Garry Kasparov v Anatoly Karpov in the 1980s, with France’s Alireza Firouzja as the spoiler in the role of Mikhail Tal.
The United States headed the initial seedings, but are below full strength. Caruana began in fine form but Hikaru Nakamura, the world No 3, already has Olympiad gold from 2016 so gave priority to his streaming career, while Hans Niemann’s results surge in recent weeks came too late for the team selection. Four of the five Americans have played previously in Olympiads for other nations. The US can still hope to secure a medal, as their team is likely to be paired against India at some point in this weekend’s final three rounds.
England, seeded No 8, dropped behind the leaders due to a seventh-round defeat by Armenia in which the new top board, former Russian Nikita Vitiugov, was beaten. One round earlier, a patient grind for the reigning British champion, Gawain Jones, ended in checkmate. At the last Olympiad in Chennai 2022, David Howell won gold for the best individual result, but in Budapest the best England score so far is an unbeaten 5/7 by the eight-time British champion Michael Adams.
Frederick Waldhausen Gordon, widely considered Scotland’s best ever talent, is closing in on the IM title. The Edinburgh 14-year-old has reached 5/7, including 3/5 against grandmasters, for a 2495 rating performance.
Banned Russia are absent, while China, which won gold on their last appearance, have been handicapped by the continuing poor form of Ding Liren, the reigning world champion, who began with a series of four tame draws and a loss while Gukesh started with five wins and a draw. Ding has now dropped out of the world top 20 in the live ratings.
China took a radical option in the seventh round, when Ding did not appear for the match against India and Wei Yi substituted, but the move misfired as Gukesh ground out a marathon win in a two knights v rook endgame. Ding was rested again in Thursday’s eighth round.
Among new talents, Eman Sawan stands out. The Palestinian, 17, is the daughter of a refugee from Gaza, where several of her friends and relatives were killed. She was able to travel to Budapest only after her mother launched a GoFundMe appeal, and she missed the opening round because her teammates arrived a day late.
Since then, Sawan has won all her seven games on top board, playing at a level at least 200-300 points above her official rating of 1972. She has scored in style with sharp gambits, exchange sacrifices, and persistent attacks.
Eight games are the minimum for a board prize, but it is unlikely that Sawan can stop there as her team has no reserve player. She probably needs 10-0, as any half point dropped will lose the top spot and the gold medal. Her ninth round game against an experienced WIM from Venezuela will be her stiffest test yet. Sawan’s immediate offboard ambition is a selfie with Carlsen, as she explained on X.
The Fide congress, which takes place during the Olympiad, will include a controversial motion to restore full voting rights to Russia and Belarus, who were banned in 2022 when the Olympiad was switched at short notice from Moscow to Chennai. The motion is believed to have enough votes for a majority, despite strong opposition from Ukraine and its allies.
To view the Olympiad games with live commentary from Budapest, go to the Fide site, where play starts at 2.15pm BST daily. Click on to Open or Women and you can watch any game you choose, with an evaluation bar to show who has the advantage.
3938: 1 Rd6+ Kf5 2 Rf7+ Kg4 3 Rxd3 and if Qxd3 4 Bh3+ Kh5 5 Rxh7 mate.
