2026 chess season tracker

[Lord]

38 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Think he deleted it soon and reposted it. Anyway why this much crying over a birthday wish? Opposition folks always find the most useless issues to make noise about. They are inventing ways to antagonize people. 

 

Because their priority is sucking up to Congress which doesnt raise actual issues too. 

[Gollum]

12 minutes ago, Lord said:

 

Because their priority is sucking up to Congress which doesnt raise actual issues too. 

True. Owaisi is the one making noise against govt when it comes to cricket with Pak, Congress is silent. 

[rkt.india]

Lost to USA

[Gollum]

13 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

Lost to USA

Just an exhibition, 10 minutes nonsense. And US had white on all boards. 

 

Invitation only, otherwise these were not our best choices for the format, people like Pragg, Nihal, Humpy are much more suited for speed chess. 

[Lord]

13 hours ago, Gollum said:

Just an exhibition, 10 minutes nonsense. And US had white on all boards. 

 

Invitation only, otherwise these were not our best choices for the format, people like Pragg, Nihal, Humpy are much more suited for speed chess. 

 

Hikaru also threw Gukesh's king in the crowd after winning. These guys hate our rise

[MechEng]

On 10/6/2025 at 11:37 PM, Lord said:

 

Hikaru also threw Gukesh's king in the crowd after winning. These guys hate our rise

 

Let's not perceive it in that way. Its just showmanship.

 

US historically has been better than us in Chess, they are far behind Russians though who dominate the game.

Edited October 28, 2025 by MechEng

[MechEng]

On 8/27/2025 at 10:49 PM, Gollum said:

Every Indian must have at least heard the name Anand. I am yet to meet a person in my uni/job who hasn't. He may not be celebrated like a cricket superstar but his name is associated with chess for our people. Also, every single person in my lab is or has been active on chess.com or lichess recently, so they are more in touch with chess than cricket which they never play. 

 

Your friend's daughters should have tried their hands at chess. Can always list it in your CV. Many 2000+ ones get accepted in top schools and make their names in CS, maths, economics etc. Heard of Demis Hassabis, Kenneth Rogoff? Of course you still have to be good at academics, but with so much competition, extra skills/achievements always help, especially a cerebral activity like chess. Parimarjan Negi was India's youngest GM at one point, since his career couldn't go to next level, went and did his PhD in CS from MIT, and now has a startup in Boston....he said in an interview that his chess achievements played a part in getting selected. 

 

When John Nunn was asked which was harder - PhD in maths or becoming a chess GM. He literally said "Are you serious? Becoming a chess GM is infinitely harder"

[Mariyam]

45 minutes ago, MechEng said:

 

When John Nunn was asked which was harder - PhD in maths or becoming a chess GM. He literally said "Are you serious? Becoming a chess GM is infinitely harder"

A PhD is not competitive. You justify an assertion/thesis. To be a GM, you have to beat other GMs. 
 

Does a maths PhD have much to offer to the Indian job market today, apart from Academia and Research?

[Gollum]

6 minutes ago, Mariyam said:

Does a maths PhD have much to offer to the Indian job market today, apart from Academia and Research?

Quants, AI, even data science jobs have good synergy with core engineering.

[Mariyam]

At the end of day 1, Gukesh is leading the Clutch Chess championship.

 

He beat Caruana ( sorry @Gollum) in both their encounters.

[MechEng]

1 hour ago, Mariyam said:

A PhD is not competitive. You justify an assertion/thesis. To be a GM, you have to beat other GMs. 
 

Does a maths PhD have much to offer to the Indian job market today, apart from Academia and Research?

 

Math PhDs are brutal, it gets as abstract as it can.

All AI/ML experts are either math or computer science PhDs.

 

And a math PhD from Oxford puts you in top 0.5 percentile.

 

[randomGuy]

2 hours ago, MechEng said:

 

Math PhDs are brutal, it gets as abstract as it can.

All AI/ML experts are either math or computer science PhDs.

 

And a math PhD from Oxford puts you in top 0.5 percentile.

 

i think one of the greatest mathematical discoveries has been back-propagation algo which is basically the backbone of AI/ML.

 

2017/18 I used to be interested in maths n had studied many  proofs/works of euler, newton, gauss, riemann , ramanujan and entire Masters circulum of statistics, of ML just out of interest.

 

Maths is great but Chess is mostly a waste of time, a waste of life , a ego booster. But it happens to be good for resume. 

[Gollum]

Einstein was a very good friend of the 2nd world chess champion, Emanuel Lasker. He one remarked that how can a man as talented as Lasker devote his entire life to something as trivial as chess. 

 

Interestingly top mathematicians/physicists often shared great relationship with world champions of chess. Heisenberg was a friend of Alekhine (4th WCC) and they both are controversial in the sense that they may have endorsed Nazi ideology. 

 

In modern era, Ken Thompson (CS pioneer, developer of Unix), Demis Hassabis (AI researcher and founder of DeepMind, Chemistry Nobel Prize last year for protein structure prediction) are chummy with the the more recent world champions. 

 

Also the first computer chess algorithm was written by Alan Turing. 

[randomGuy]

24 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Einstein was a very good friend of the 2nd world chess champion, Emanuel Lasker. He one remarked that how can a man as talented as Lasker devote his entire life to something as trivial as chess. 

 

 

Thanks for all the knowledge!! Good to know that the great Einstein had similar thoughts...

 

I have mentioned having reached 2250 in rapid lichess rating in past which means 2000/2100 fide classical... this is not anything great but probably not very bad also. 

 

I will say that if you study maths all your life and get to no-where in maths, you will still feel satisfied with the time spent on maths. But if you play professional chess and even if you reach top 100, you will still feel having wasted your life.... This is at least how my thinking goes.

Edited October 28, 2025 by randomGuy

[Gollum]

Apart from the WC (generally don't follow rapid/blitz/960), this is one event I am looking forward to, Tata Steel Chess, Wijk Aan Zee. Masters lineup announced. 

 

Such a young, exciting field. Good to see Hans get an invite, after all he has been through. 4 Indians, Pragg is the defending champion. 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2025 by Gollum

[MechEng]

3 hours ago, randomGuy said:

 

Maths is great but Chess is mostly a waste of time, a waste of life , a ego booster. But it happens to be good for resume. 

 

Not necessarily true. Maths vs chess is not an apples to apples comparison although both require intense intellectual effort.

 

A chess grandmaster can leverage their strategic acumen and become management consulting gurus or military strategists.

Edited October 28, 2025 by MechEng

[Gollum]

17 hours ago, randomGuy said:

I will say that if you study maths all your life and get to no-where in maths, you will still feel satisfied with the time spent on maths. But if you play professional chess and even if you reach top 100, you will still feel having wasted your life.... This is at least how my thinking goes.

If you look at it that way, most sports will also be unfulfilling. Imagine a professional track athlete, doing sprints all his life and hanging up his boots at the age of 30, may take coaching job in some university after that and lead what we may call a 'boring' life. Painting, theatre, dance, poetry, social sciences, people dedicate their lives in these fields, just like chess players. Being from STEM field, we may think that we are doing more worthwhile stuff. I am sure those from legal, economics and medical background will argue their cases. I think humanity needs all of the above, there has to be colour in life, some form of cultural enrichment, and stuff that makes people happy, inspires greatness. Human progress has never been purely scientific. 

Edited October 29, 2025 by Gollum

[randomGuy]

1 hour ago, Gollum said:

If you look at it that way, most sports will also be unfulfilling. Imagine a professional track athlete, doing sprints all his life and hanging up his boots at the age of 30, may take coaching job in some university after that and lead what we may call a 'boring' life. Painting, theatre, dance, poetry, social sciences, people dedicate their lives in these fields, just like chess players. Being from STEM field, we may think that we are doing more worthwhile stuff. I am sure those from legal, economics and medical background will argue their cases. I think humanity needs all of the above, there has to be colour in life, some form of cultural enrichment, and stuff that makes people happy, inspires greatness. Human progress has never been purely scientific. 

Track and field is fun. Esp. sprint, it will pump your heart , work your muscles, give you supreme fitness and all the happy hormones....

 

Professional chess is thoroughly unsatisfying, long hours, pure waste of time, speed chess even more wastage. I consider it my duty to discourage people from pursuing professional chess and from giving long hrs to playing, learning chess.:D

 

Painting, theatre, dance, poetry, economics, medical, legal all have a degree of satisfaction associated. Not undermining them at all.

 

[Gollum]

 

Beautiful and innovatively designed trophy, and venue. Best of luck to not just the players but also the organizers in Goa and AICF. I am sure India will host the best ever Chess WC, and players will have a gala time enjoying Indian hospitality at its finest. 

Edited October 31, 2025 by Gollum

[Gollum]

With this, India will have hosted WCC, Olympiad, WC, supertournament (both classical and rapid/blitz) in recent past. Hope we also bid for next year's candidates with 2-3 of our own among the prospects to challenge Gukesh. 

Edited October 31, 2025 by Gollum