How chess players tackled tricky choice of jersey numbers at GCL: Inspiration from Messi, Sachin, Dhoni, and some help from family | Chess News

Last year an email landed in the inboxes of three of India’s top prodigies — D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi — asking them a question that they never had to answer before. The team management of the Alpine SG Pipers wanted to know what they would like their jersey numbers to be.At the Global Chess League, some of the world’s best players have had to confront the jersey number question much before they get to other vexing questions over the chess board.
Praggnanandhaa contemplated the question for a while and decided he wanted No 10. It was not only his date of birth but also the number that legendary athletes like Sachin Tendulkar and Lionel Messi had sported on the back of their jerseys.
But someone else on his team had the same thought.

“I replied to the email about seven hours later. But Gukesh had replied earlier asking for No 10. So eventually, last time I ended up with No 7. It’s what Criano Ronaldo and MS Dhoni wore. And last season worked out well for me. So this time I picked the same number again,” Pragg tells The Indian Express with a grin.
Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand had it easy for his choice. But there have been plenty of questions on the pick, No 64.
“64 has become kind of my thing. Vishy64TheKing is my Twitter handle. It’s become an eternal joke,” Ganges Grandmasters’ icon player Anand tells The Indian Express. “But people see it and ask me ‘Oh were you born in 1964?’ I have to tell them that I was born in 1969 but 64 is how many squares there are on the chessboard!”
And just like Pragg, American Gambits icon star Hikaru Nakamura also was denied his initial pick for the number on his back.
“I didn’t pick my number. I basically picked No 1 or No 5. They didn’t have it. So I just told them to pick one!” shrugs the World No 2 who also wears the No 2 jersey.
Vidit Gujrathi, too, was denied his pick of No 4 because someone else had got there before him. He smiles as he says he will not reveal why he wanted No 4 but adds: “When that was not available, I picked No 1. Levon Aronian (playing for Triveni Continental Kings) picked it last time and they won the tournament. So I took that as well.”
Sachin and Dhoni are not the only cricketers who have made it easier for players at the GCL to decide their jersey numbers. Current India captain Rohit Sharma’s jersey number 45 also found a taker in upGrad Mumba Masters’ Raunak Sadhwani, who says the Mumbai cricketer is his favourite, which made him pick the jersey number as well.
Confronted a question that they rarely ever face in a sport where they mostly play in business suits, some have picked numbers that have special meaning for them.

Harika Dronavalli, who led the Indian women’s team to the gold medal at the recently-concluded Chess Olympiad in Budapest, says when she was asked to pick a jersey number, she was dumbfounded initially, Then she ended up picking her daughter’s birthdate — 24 — because it was the only number that came in her mind. She had, of course, competed in the previous Olympiad while pregnant.
Ganges Grandmasters’ Arjun Erigaisi picked No 3 because he was born on September 3, 2003.
PBG Alaskan Knights Nihal Sarin confesses he had no role in picking the number on his back: 13. While the rest of the world might consider it unlucky, Nihal chuckles: “My manager chose it because I was born on July 13. I know it’s considered unlucky. But I’m hoping to change that.”