jun 6th, 2012 CE
i just found out about this GM, who's about 14, and is half-nepali, half-russian, playing for the netherlands. hurrah for this half-subcontinental player.
he has a number of feats to his name, including defeating magnus carlsen, another prodigy, and world no. 1 in ELO ratings.
i am a little disappointed that there are not too many indians in the very top echelons of the game -- what happened to the other GMs and womens' GMs -- none of them are able to crack the top 10 in the world. (actually if i remember right, only one female player, judit polgar, has ever reached the very top of the men's game; it is an intriguing question as to why this might be -- is it, gulp, to be quite non-politically-correct, that women are simply not wired for chess, but for other games?)
3 comments:
Rajeev, here is Sharad Tilak's article on what ails Indian GMs.
http://www.dnaindia.com/sport/column_kings-here-but-wheres-the-crown-prince_1697393
As much as Anish Giri is a budding talent, there is not really much to crow about in terms of his subcontinental origins. He is primarily an European product in a European system.
As for women, breaking the glass ceiling is not impossible, it just needs one example. I wish that example would be K. Humpy, but I am increasingly doubtful after the psychological whiplashing she took at the hands of H. Yifan. Its gonna take her at least a year or so to recover and climb to where she once was, let alone climb to where she can get to.
thank you for that link, pax-indica. good story; yes, if only there were some more corporate sponsors so that major chess (GM-level) events could be held in india, and lots of clubs could be set up.
i am not sure what happened to koneru humpy vs. yifan, but she is our best bet. world junior champion at one time, i too am rooting for her.
I also assume that you have heard of ELO inflation over the last decade or so. You can see the whines on chessbase that happen every 2-3 months. Basically, when you play a higher ELO rated player, there is a good chance of gaining points even with a draw which is pretty much what happens in reality. The whole scenario is non-zero-sum as more and more players can get ELO rated and countries' ELO average also keeps rising at the cost of new arrivals. The Oiropean countries conduct more category-17+ events which allow more players to rise up, china too has followed this mode of late. In India, we are stuck with cat-16 or worse. Its hard to rise against this tide of both self-imposed as well as forced-into constraints.
As for Humpy, she is our best bet yes. But what she had against Hou would pale into comparison with what Anand went through. Sanghi Nagar, Dragon slaying at the 100+th floor of wtc, followed by the Karpov sneaking past him in tbreaker, Anand has seen it from the abyss three times. Humpy has got it early, which is better than receiving it like Topalov did at 35+ or Gelfand got it at 44 :). This will be a character test for Humpy, already Anna Muzychuk has elbowed past her. Then there is the fast climbing Elina Danielian and many many others. At some point, all players get stuck in India cos there all have the same ideas. Unlike in Oirope where people share ideas, collaborate and game the environment and move ahead. While Kasparov showed his openings book to MagC and Hikaru, Anand may not show his trick book to others. May be after he retires!
"equalizing" the system with higher
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