India’s top players are playing too much chess and missing out on originality

The recent results of D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi have left a lot to desired; they seem exhausted and must take out time to rest

India’s top three chess players — world champion D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi — had a forgettable campaign at the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee. There are a few likely reasons behind these performances.

The biggest one is probably that they are playing too many tournaments. Look at Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, who have stayed away from playing in events all year round. But Praggnanandhaa, who will also compete in the Candidates in two months’ time like Nakamura and Caruana, has been playing continuously since before the FIDE World Cup.

In fact, all three of the top Indian players have been playing so many tournaments. The brain may not be able to perform great at chess for 365 days of the year. Our top players are exhausted.

For someone like former world champion Anatoly Karpov, it was okay to play that much. Back in the day, he used to play two tournaments a month. But his successor on the world champion’s throne Garry Kasparov restricted himself to only four or six tournaments a year when there was no World Championship match. That means he played about one tournament in two months. Kasparov knew what he wanted. And Karpov knew what he wanted.