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

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.

One of the reasons for the Indian trio playing so much chess could be the financial incentives. There are tournaments where appearance fees are more than the prize money. So, it gets difficult to say no. Or, in some cases, you have a personal friendship with the organiser who requests them personally to play in their tournament, making it difficult to refuse.

I don’t believe that a player is fit to play their best chess 365 days a year. There must be some time to rest.

Sometimes, players think that playing rapid and blitz tournaments is okay, since the games are shorter and not as physically taxing as classical ones. But rapid and blitz games can consume as much energy as a classical game takes mentally.

Another reason for results going down may be lack of original thinking. I mean that in terms of strategic creativity, rather than tactical creativity on the board. (Strategy is having a long-term plan aimed at getting an advantageous position on the board. Tactics are short-term sequences of moves to gain material). Top players these days get a lot of their opening prep from their trainers, so you are given a plan. Originality has been lost because the opening ideas are given by others which may not even suit their original playing style.

This is a problem. When book knowledge ends, they spend a lot of time thinking about their position. Or they are getting into positions which are unfamiliar, or unsuitable, to them.

I use the word unsuitable because everybody has a style. For example, in a defensive position where Karpov would win easily, Vishy Anand would never want to play that position. Anand is wise enough not to play any defensive positions. He’s said himself that he is not good in defence, and doesn’t like to defend. So instead of passive defence, Anand would prefer a sacrifice and an active counter-attack. So he understood himself.

Not true to themselves

Gukesh is fantastic in defence, and can play all those Karpov positions. At the 2022 Olympiad, he was like Karpov. He played positions which did not appear to be sound for a common person. But when I checked the engine, he was always found to be correct.

So somewhere that originality was there, he was more or less a player who wanted to avoid simplification. Now he makes a lot of tactical mistakes. In the game against Nakamura in the Global Chess League, when I thought he was in a very good position, he suddenly made a blunder. And a winning position immediately became a lost position. Gukesh never committed such mistakes till the 2022 Olympiad.

In 2022 and 2023, Gukesh was playing with 99 percent accuracy in games. He played totally original games. Sometimes, he would take a lot of time very early, as early as move 10, but after that thought, would play a ‘Gukesh move’. Arjun too would come up with new strategic ideas in known positions. His great advantage was finding novelties. He would follow the path used by others previously, but would suddenly come up with a new idea.

Somewhere, they don’t play in consistency with their styles. They have lost some originality and creativity. I think Gukesh, in particular, has not been playing as per his natural style at all.

The other big problem, and this is true for many of the elite players, is that they are playing very few opponents. They play in invitational events rather than open tournaments, so they rarely face somebody whom they played two years back. Mostly everybody is playing safe in these tournaments. Everybody is okay with a draw. They know that the opponent has a similar rating as them so a draw is okay.

When top players play only among themselves in close tournaments, they become tactically poor. Because you know there are games in which you are just playing a standard position where you are slightly better but with no direct threats. And you actually lose touch with tactics.

The tactical judgement and accuracy, which they had because they were playing Swiss League tournaments in 2022 and 2023 has temporarily deserted them due to the dull nature of positions they played in 2025. So, when a lesser-known opponent plays spirited chess, these players are unable to respond to it with accurate tactics.

2026 is an important year for all three players. Gukesh must recover till the World Championship in November-December. Or the Olympiad, which is in September. For Arjun, too, the Olympiad is the most important event of 2026. But for Praggnanandhaa, the most important tournament of his life, the Candidates, will start as early as March 26.

(Pravin Thipsay is an Arjuna Awardee and the third grandmaster from India. He spoke to Amit Kamath)