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Chess Olympiad 2024


Vickydev

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One of the greatest feats in the history of independent India. Double gold in Olympiad, one of them by a record margin. 

 

 

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On 9/20/2024 at 1:02 AM, rangeelaraja said:

Both Harika and Humpy have underperformed for a very long time. 
 

We have new younger talent coming and they  should make way for them especially when representing India at the Olympiad. 
 

Humpy is not playing this Olympiad but has won nothing of note for the longest time. 

Anand is an exception. Olympiad success was one thing that eluded him, because of the weaker team in his prime days (like how Carlsen is facing right now). He also skipped a few editions because of AICF politics, there were two competing factions staking claim, it was messed up for a few years.

 

Had he chosen to compete, Gukesh would have given up his top spot for him, because of the respect and awe Anand commands in these youngsters' minds. Heck he could have even tagged in as reserve board player and been part of the gold winning team, like Harikrishna, but he didn't do that, let the younger generations shine. Special mention to Hari here, this is his 10th or 11th Olympiad. 

 

Vishy has been semi-retired post pandemic, that frees up another slot for Indian players.....top tournaments (closed) usually have a cap of 2, maybe 3 players from each country, that is why many talented Russians couldn't get invitations and hence stagnated, like Dubov. 

 

I think as great a player as he was, coach/mentor Anand will leave an even bigger impact on Indian chess.

 

@Mariyam I see Anand become a Botvinnik like figure. Botvinnik too was a 5x world champion, but also remembered as head (patriarch) of USSR school of chess, where he trained/mentored multiple world champions like Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik. 

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Just now, Gollum said:

Anand is an exception. Olympiad success was one thing that eluded him, because of the weaker team in his prime days (like how Carlsen is facing right now). He also skipped a few editions because of AICF politics, there were two competing factions staking claim, it was messed up for a few years.

 

Had he chosen to compete, Gukesh would have given up his top spot for him, because of the respect and awe Anand commands in these youngsters' minds. Heck he could have even tagged in as reserve board player and been part of the gold winning team, like Harikrishna, but he didn't do that, let the younger generations shine. Special mention to Hari here, this is his 10th or 11th Olympiad. 

 

Vishy has been semi-retired post pandemic, that frees up another slot for Indian players.....top tournaments (closed) usually have a cap of 2, maybe 3 players from each country, that is why many talented Russians couldn't get invitations and hence stagnated, like Dubov. 

 

I think as great a player as he was, coach/mentor Anand will leave an even bigger impact on Indian chess.

 

@Mariyam I see Anand become a Botvinnik like figure. Botvinnik too was a 5x world champion, but also remembered as head (patriarch) of USSR school of chess, where he trained/mentored multiple world champions like Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik. 


hellooo gollyyyy

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Watched an interview of Anand - per him this has been the most dominating performance in the history of Chess Olympiads. 
 

He said that during the peak Soviet era, there were 1-2 teams that had comparable performance but not against teams of the caliber that India defeated. 
 


We lost just 1 game out of 44 games in the entire Olympiad.  No one has come close to this kind of domination. 
 

We were very close in 2022 Chennai too, that one loss against Uzbekistan cost us the gold then, and India B won Bronze. 
 

Hope to see an encore of this 2024 performance in 2026. 
 

 

Edited by rangeelaraja
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Indian men primed to dominate Olympiads in the future, we are just getting started. Gukesh, Pragg, Arjun are yet to hit their peaks, and by the time they do more prodigies will emerge, with higher ceiling than Vidit, Hari. 

 

Not sure about women, if China decides to send its best team, no other country has a chance tbh. Hou has semi retired, Ju and Lei are busy with world championship preparation. Tan skipped for personal reasons. Top 4 in women's rankings, all Chinese. 

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18 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Indian men primed to dominate Olympiads in the future, we are just getting started. Gukesh, Pragg, Arjun are yet to hit their peaks, and by the time they do more prodigies will emerge, with higher ceiling than Vidit, Hari. 

 

Not sure about women, if China decides to send its best team, no other country has a chance tbh. Hou has semi retired, Ju and Lei are busy with world championship preparation. Tan skipped for personal reasons. Top 4 in women's rankings, all Chinese. 


 

Top rated Chinese women are in their mid 30s - that is when they wind up professional commitments and play chess part time and very selectively. 
 

Divya, Vantika, Vaishali are either under 20 or early 20s. 
 

China sent the best of their current lot and they got beaten by India. 
 

I think our young lot can dominate - we just need one more strong player in place of Harika whose best is behind her. 
 

Vantika was the find of this tournament for us in the women section. 

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Couldn't watch the matches live.

 

Watching the chessbase India stream now. All the superstars came on the stream today. Awesome to hear from them. Srinath narayanan is eloquent and an awesome person. Captain awesome.

 

Harshit raja is a great addition to the commentry team he is chill, and smart (a GM), I like to hear his analysis. he is from Pune, I thought he may have been from Delhi.

 

Gukesh and Arjun were unbelievable.  Magnus would be thinking he better shut up passing comments on Gukesh like in the past. Divya Deshmukh played extremely well. She has potential to be a future world champion. Although I do think she should learn from Gukesh's public interviews about how and what to say because Gukesh is extremely mature (much beyond his age).

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Gukesh Olympiad performance rating = 3056. 

Arjun Olympiad performance rating  = 2968                                      

 

These are 2nd and 5th highest ever performance ratings in the history of chess tournaments/matches.

 

The highest ever performance rating is 3103 achieved by Fabiano Caruana in the 2014 Sinquefield Cup.

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, rangeelaraja said:


 

Top rated Chinese women are in their mid 30s - that is when they wind up professional commitments and play chess part time and very selectively. 
 

Divya, Vantika, Vaishali are either under 20 or early 20s. 
 

China sent the best of their current lot and they got beaten by India. 
 

I think our young lot can dominate - we just need one more strong player in place of Harika whose best is behind her. 
 

Vantika was the find of this tournament for us in the women section. 

Thing is China has a rich legacy in women's chess. Many world champions, including recent ones. Every generation produces 2-3 outstanding talents. 

 

Vantika is already 22, and in 2300s. 

 

Divya is our best bet. 

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Humpy deserves a lot of credit as well for being a pioneer. One of the earlier GMs in India as well as among women worldwide. 

 

World number 2 for a long time. Didn't win the biggest crown in 2000s when she often went as favorite, you can call it choking. When she got a chance, ran into a generational talent called Hou Yifan, second greatest ever behind Judit Polgar. 

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29 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Gukesh_elo.jpg

 

From reddit/chess

 

 

I don't think that is accurate.  It is missing Kasparov's 1999 Linares performance-  it is his absolute peak. 2986 tournament performance. 

 

Again my source is chatgpt- which may perhaps be more accurate than someone posting on reddit.

 

And even more rationally, Kasparov's peak rating was 2850 or so. He would have had a few tournaments in very high 2900s.

 

Edited by rangeelaraja
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6 minutes ago, rangeelaraja said:

 

 

I don't think that is accurate.  It is missing Kasparov's 1999 Linares performance-  it is his absolute peak. 2986 tournament performance. 

 

Again my source is chatgpt- which may perhaps be more accurate than someone posting on reddit.

 

And even more rationally, Kasparov's peak rating was 2850 or so. He would have had a few tournaments in very high 2900s.

 

Possible, even I thought there would be a couple of Kasparov performances. Maybe even Topalov from mid 2000s who sometimes would go on hot streaks. 

 

Anand, Kramnik weren't that relentless, they'd be more pragmatic and conserve energy, take early draws, look at +3/+4 in closed events which would mostly be winning scores etc. Early days but Pragg may be similar. 

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Nihal has stagnated, maybe too much online bullet/blitz chess and less chess studies/prep. 

 

Raunak, Leon, Pranav are others.

 

Need one of these youngsters to step up and take Hari's position in 2026. As good as he is, Hari  will be 40 by then, retirement age !!!!

 

Won't be a bad idea to lure Abhimanyu Mishra to India. 

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