R. Praggnanandhaa defeated reigning world champion Ding Liren to overtake Viswanathan Anand as India’s top-ranked chess player in FIDE’s live ratings earlier this week.
Praggnanandhaa follows D. Gukesh, who in September last year, ended Anand’s 37-year reign as the nation’s highest-ranked player.
Anand, a five-time world champion, believes that given India’s huge talent pool, it is time to redefine the gold standard.
“My rating has been a stationary target. It is not moving because I’m playing much less. So one by one, all players will do it. Vidit (Gujrathi) is only seven behind me. One good day and he will come within five points,” said Anand, a guest of honour at the first Bangalore International Grandmasters chess tournament here on Thursday.
“Becoming India’s highest-ranked player was noticed when Gukesh did it as it was the first time in 37 years that somebody was ranked higher than me. That was a significant milestone. But now that two players have done it, we should redefine the bar as my all-time career high ELO rating of 2817. Everyone should go for that,” Anand said.
Anand’s career-high rating will put a player second in the world, between leader Magnus Carlsen (2830) and Fabiano Caruana (2804).
“My career-high rating is some distance away, but these young players are certainly very strong. It is something to aim for — a nice long-term goal,” Anand said.
About his ascent to the top of the India charts back in 1986, Anand said, “I was happy to get slightly ahead of my peers — (Dibyendu) Barua, (D.V.) Prasad and (Pravin) Thipsay. We were all trying to get the GM norm. My rating achievement was a precursor to me getting the GM title first. But we cannot compare those days to the present one. We have six players in the top-100 now, while I was alone. We also had R. Vaishali join (Koneru) Humpy and D. Harika as an open Grandmaster. That’s a big breakthrough. We have a strong group of players now, and most are ridiculously young. The future is bright,” he said.
Anand, deputy president of world governing body FIDE, stated that India remains an important chess nation. “The Chess Olympiad (hosted in Chennai in 2022) brought the sport home to so many people. Usually, Indians only travelled to play, now we are hosting big events. It’s nice to see that Bengaluru is hosting this first big tournament,” Anand said.
