Vidit Gujrathi, India’s flagbearer in chess for the past decade, shifts focus to ‘vibe coding’ chess apps for elite players

Taking a step back

Vidit says the need to take a step back from the sport and ease up on tournaments came after an ‘intense burnout’ he felt while chasing his world championship dream in the last cycle. He made it all the way to the elite eight-player Candidates tournament last year, but that pursuit took a toll.

“After the Candidates I felt a burnout. And then I felt lost: ‘Okay, I’ve reached the Candidates, now what? What is the next thing?’ After that, I just did not feel the motivation. I gave around three years from 2021 to 2024 to this dream. It got very intense. In 2023, for example, I was working 14-16 hours a day, like non-stop thinking about chess. I am not doing that now. I personally feel that difference, and it bothers me a bit. But it was not sustainable. That got me questioning: Do I really want to keep up this schedule? Or do I want to take a step back? And when I was doing other things, I was enjoying it.”

The 31-year-old says he doesn’t quite know what he will end up doing once the tournaments reduce to a trickle. He says he is open to mentoring youngsters and maybe ‘living the dream of becoming world champion through someone else’.

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But for now, the pursuit that has caught his fantasy in earnest over the last couple of months is creating training tools for professional chess players: he’s birthed at least three chess websites for elite players by ‘vibe coding’ them himself. Vibe coding is a way of creating software, a website, or an app by using artificial intelligence, where a human gives a prompt while AI writes the background code for the website or app.

He also points out that he’s received positive feedback already from GMs like Anish Giri and Vasif Duryarbayli in the couple of months the sites have been up and running.

Website launches

In the first website (memory.viditchess), you are shown a position on the board for 10 seconds, before you try to recreate the position on a blank board. The second site (tactics.viditchess) uses games from tournaments like the recent FIDE World Cup to ask users to find the best move in an actual match situation. Vidit also has at least one more chess website that he’s vibe coded, but he says that one’s for his private use.

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“The already existing training tools are for the masses. Not for the elite level chess players. But these ones that I have made are for elite players, and they’re free to use.”
Vidit says that he’s always looked to create similar learning tools to get better, but back in those days, the technology couldn’t keep up with his ambitions.

“I was always a person who enjoyed tech, gadgets, all that stuff. When I was working with Anish Giri in 2016, I tried to create a tool which would help with our opening preparation, thus reducing our manual work. But those times were very different. It was not so easy to do it. But we still managed to do something. Back then, I had to work with a software engineer. He would do it manually and give me that tool after two-three weeks. Even then, it might still have bugs. But right now, I can do it myself. I feel like I can solve my own problems. Such an enabler the year 2025 has been.”

As he reflects on his career, there are some regrets and some moments that make him proud.

“Somewhere in my heart, I feel like I still haven’t reached my potential. One of the regrets I have is that if I could get better control over my nerves or handle my emotions better, I would have added at least 30-40 points more to my ELO rating. But there’s also the feeling that when I give my best, as I did for three years in the last cycle, I can reach the Candidates.”