How India Dominated The 45th Chess Olympiad
The 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest featured 381 teams, but only one winning country. India totally dominated the event, winning both the Open and Women's sections with an unprecedented performance.
A very impressive double gold achievement by India. "Vishy's children" are all grown up and chess is coming home! Two American flags on the podiums as well, worthy of note. Add Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, with no European flags. https://t.co/0lK4HGLpDm
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) September 23, 2024
How did the Indian team demolish the competition like no one has done before?
Team Dominance
Entering the Olympiad, India's Open team had an impressive average rating of 2753, but that only placed them second, behind team USA's 2757. This didn't slow down the Indian team at all, as they won ten matches and tied one, scoring a record 21 out of 22 possible match points. This was the best result since the Olympiad started its current scoring format in 2008, breaking the record of 20 match points by team USA in 2016.
India also won the Women's section, with 19 match points, edging out Kazhakstan's 18 points. India is only the second country since the breakup of the Soviet Union to win both sections in the same Olympiad. China accomplished the feat in 2018. It's worth noting that the Open Section teams for both China and USA include many of the same players that won gold in the past and India defeated both of those teams on their way to victory this year!
Arjun Erigaisi
How did the Indian team score so highly in the Open section? They primarily relied on amazing performances by GMs Arjun Erigaisi and GM Gukesh Dommaraju. Erigaisi, currently the third highest-rated player in the world, was a significant favorite in every game on board three. He played every round and scored a spectacular nine wins and two draws for a performance rating of 2968 and the gold medal for his board.
Erigaisi's performance was graded by Chess.com's Game Review, with a precision score (CAPS) of 95.65 throughout the tournament. That level of play puts Arjun in good company. For comparison, that's a better performance than GM Fabiano Caruana's famous 2014 Sinquefield Cup (94.47), Bobby Fischer's 11-0 US Championship (94.61), and some of Magnus Carlsen's best events like Nanjing 2009 (95.07), and Grenke 2019 (95.25).
Check out GM Rafael Leitao's analysis of Arjun's final-round victory. He played a sharp and surprising opening, leading to a swift win against a strong grandmaster.
Gukesh Dommaraju
As amazing as Erigaisi's tournament was, Gukesh's performance rating was even higher. He had a similarly successful event (eight wins and two draws), but did it on board one, defeating the best players from nearly every country he faced. Gukesh had a spectacular performance rating of 3056, adding 30.1 points to his already impressive rating, moving up to fifth in the world, only three points behind Arjun.
Gukesh paired that astonishing performance rating with a nearly identical CAPS score to Arjun, 95.35. It's no surprise with that type of play that Gukesh took home the individual gold medal on board one for the second conductive olympiad!
Check out GM Leitao's analysis of this instant-classic endgame grind by Gukesh against GM Wei Yi.
What's Next?
The most immediate high profile event on the agenda for Indian chess is Gukesh's World Championship match against the current title holder, Ding Liren, in November. Gukesh must be the favorite going in. For comparison, he won eight games on board one in the Olympiad and Ding failed to win any.
The future is bright for Indian chess. Their top three boards are Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, and Erigaisi, the eldest of whom just turned 21 years old. You can expect India to dominate the Olympiads for years to come. The Soviet Union won 12 consecutive Olympiads between 1952 and 1974. For India to match that, they will need to win every Olympiad until 2046. It seems unlikely, but who is going to bet against them?
What were you most impressed by at the Olympiad? Let us know in the comments.
Jeremy Kane is a National Master and three-time Wisconsin state champion. He is the Director of Training Content for Chess.com. He has been teaching chess in person and online for over 15 years and has designed hundreds of lessons, available on chess.com/lessons. He is the author of Starting Out The Trompowsky on Chessable and The Next To Last Mistake, a book on defensive ideas in chess.
He is the developer of the Caro-Kane Variation of the Caro-Kann Defense.
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Twitter/X: @chessmensch
