Chess controversy: Is Chennai Grand Masters held just to help Gukesh & Erigaisi make candidates cut? ‘Within rules’ says Viswanathan Anand | Chess News
The Chennai Grand Masters event has received criticism from several quarters that it has been included in the calendar at the last minute to help improve the chances of D Gukesh and Arjun Erigaisi making the Candidates cut. However, FIDE (International Chess Federation) deputy president Vishwanathan Anand said he has absolutely no question of fairness around the event.
“If people find out that they need to finish 5th in a tournament to qualify and they focus on finishing fifth rather than winning… is that a violation? I mean, you are supposed to play for first place. If a player is content with fifth place, he’s content with fifth… It’s the same thing. Within the rules, if you organise a tournament, it is fine. I’m very happy with this tournament. I don’t see a problem with this at all,” Anand said.
Since the pandemic India’s next rung of players R Praggnanandhaa, D Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, Nihal Sarin and Raunak Sadhwani have been grabbing eyeballs world over. In the last Olympiad, held here, four of these five walked away with the bronze medal (Arjun was in India A team) with the likes of Carslen maintaining that the above mentioned lot were the talents to watch out for. Despite only being in their teens, they have been having considerable success in the FIDE circuit with Pragg even finishing with a silver medal at the World Cup earlier this year.
Among those featuring in the Chennai Grand Masters, the form of Gukesh has been a concern of late, as he has slipped in world rankings and has also lost out on ELO points. While there are concerns that whether the youngsters would be able to live-up to the expectations, Anand threw his weight behind the ‘golden generation’.
“For me it’s clear that all of them comfortably play against the top five or the top 10 and have pretty good results. There’s nothing to suggest they are out of place. They are a stable golden generation. In 2-3 years, we could have 2-3 of them in the top 20 consently. And we would not bat an eyelid. When I started the Westbridge-Anand Academy, I thought it would be great to get there in 4-5 years. And, boom, we have got there in 2-3 years and many of them have started to break through. So it has happened much faster,” Anand said.
