Indian chess legend Pravin Thipsay has delivered a bitter reality check as the young chess stars from the country, including world D Gukesh, have struggled to replicate their blistering form from 2024. Indian chess experienced an unprecedented rise in 2024 as they won a historic gold medal at the Chess Olympiad, while Gukesh won the FIDE Candidates at just 17 and later the World Chess Championship at the age of 18.

However, the Chennai Grandmaster has struggled to live up to the expectations so far, not winning any major title since becoming the youngest world chess champion. Gukesh recently had a poor outing in the Prague Chess Masters 2026, winning just one match. He also apologised to fans during an interview through the tournament for not signing autographs, as Gukesh
admitted that he needed some downtime.

It’s not just Gukesh, even R Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi have had a few troubled fast few months. Despite being one of the favourites, they failed to reach the semi-finals at the FIDE World Cup 2025 in Goa.

‘Gukesh have lost some accuracy’

Dissecting the poor form of the renowned Indian trio, Thipsay said that Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa and Erigaisi’s games have lost some shine in recent months, while the opponents have started to prepare better than ever for the Indian GMs.

“Praggnanandhaa was once one of the most dangerous attacking players, but he isn’t getting many attacking positions now. Gukesh was phenomenal defensively, as his accuracy in events like the Olympiad was extraordinary,” Thipsay, who became a Grandmaster in 1997, told Times of India.

“Rivals are preparing specific strategies to complicate games. Meanwhile, Arjun and Gukesh have lost some accuracy, and Praggnanandhaa some initiative.”

‘Indian chess is individualistic’

The most damning of the verdict came when Thipsay spoke about the overall chess structure in India and underlined that the rise of Gukesh and Co has been scripted by their individual brilliance. He argued that Indian chess stars are not the product of a system like the former Russian world champions, but rather their own hard work and their families’ sacrifices.

Thipsay added that while Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa and Erigaisi have been part of the world’s top 10, we may not get players of the same stature in the near future due to a flawed system.

“Indian chess has always been very individualistic. None of these champions has been created by a system,” Thipsay told TOI.

“Parents sacrifice careers, invest time and resources, and players build themselves through sheer dedication. Just because three players reach the top 10 today does not mean we will automatically produce three more in ten years.”

Arjun Erigaisi failed to reach the semi-finals of the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship in Weissenhaus on Friday, but still had a memorable classification round with a victory over world No 1 Magnus Carlsen. The Indian chess prodigy also defeated Vincent Keymer and FIDE World Cup winner Javokhir Sindarov.

The 22-year-old from Warangal, Erigaisi, lost the remaining four games to finish in sixth place in the classification as Carlsen, Keymer, Fabiano Caruana and Nodirbek Abdusattorov progressed to the semi-finals.

Erigaisi, fast becoming Carlsen’s ‘boogeyman’

Amazingly, Carlsen’s only defeat in the classification round came against the Indian Erigaisi before he won the round robin with 4.5 points out of 7.

The match was played in the No 277 position, where the two bishops are in the extreme corner on the king’s side. Making the most of the white pieces’ advantage, Erigaisi pushed Carlsen into a corner early on

“This is a position that you don’t even want to get in your nightmares,” legendary Judit Polgar said in commentary as Erigiasi took an advantage over Carlsen. “These are the positions that you want to make a good move and then resign because you don’t want to suffer longer.”

Chess great Peter Leko added, “You won’t even wish it upon your biggest enemy. This is a horror.”

Erigaisi’s advantage in the early opening can be explained by the fact that he did not play a piece from the back rank till the 10th move,

“I find it interesting that Arjun has not moved any other piece other than his pawns. It’s like a pawn war,” Polgar underlined.

As per the Lichess engine, Carlsen also made four inaccurate moves during the game, and a major mistake on the 27th move before resigning next.

How Arjun crushed Carlsen

It must have been a difficult defeat for Carlsen to digest, having recently lost to Erigiasi at the FIDE World Blitz Championship 2025 towards the end of last year. Carlsen had infamously
slammed the table in frustration after losing to Arjun, and while at Weissenhaus, he repeated any such antics; it’s clear that Erigiasi is soon becoming Carlsen’s boogeyman.

R Praggnanandhaa kept the hopes of an all-Indian World Championship showdown with D Gukesh alive when he became the only Indian to qualify for the Candidates Tournament that will be taking place in Cyprus in the months of March and April.

‘Pragg’ had qualified for the prestigious event for the second consecutive time in December
as the winner of the 2025 FIDE Circuit, thus becoming the only Indian to compete in the ‘Open’ section with compatriot Arjun Erigaisi, the current Indian No 1 in all three formats, having failed to secure his place through the other pathways.

And among the players he’s likely to come face to face with in the upcoming tournament with Dutch Grandmaster Anish Giri, who had secured his qualification as one of the top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament that took place in Uzbekistan in September.

Giri backs Nakamura and Caruana as the favourites

In a conversation with Greg Mustreader on the Chess with Mustreader podcast, Giri felt that it was only natural to include Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana in the favourites conversation. Nakamura and Caruana are second and third respectively on the FIDE Classical ratings, and qualified for the tournament via the ratings spot and as the winner of the 2024 FIDE Circuit respectively.

“It’s very sensible to place Hikaru and Fabi in the top two, simply because Hikaru is the highest rated and somewhat surprising to me he has the best score against the field. Largely because he’s doing well against Fabiano recently, and he’s been doing fine against me,” Giri said on the podcast.

“Fabi, of course, such a stable player for so many years, been winning so many events. He got to the match with Magnus, and he almost took him all the way down and just to the wire and almost won,” he added.

As for Praggnanandhaa, the Dutch GM made a passing mention of the world No 8 in the FIDE Classical ratings.

“Pragg played, but he didn’t come as close as the others in his outing the last time. He gave it a good shot,” Giri added while discussing the other players in the fray.

Besides Nakamura, Caruana, Giri and Praggnanandhaa, the upcoming Candidates – which takes place from 28 March to 16 April – will feature Matthias Bluebaum, Javokhir Sindarov, Wei Yi and Andrey Esipenko.