When a chess player is called Grandmaster? Eligibility, criteria, list of Chess Grandmasters from India

Viswanathan Anand was the first Indian chess player to win the Grandmaster title in 1988 and then the popularity of the game in India increased rapidly. Since Anand's historic achievement, a total of 83 Indian players have won the Grandmaster title. 

Vuppala Prraneeth, the 16-year-old Chess player from India, is the latest entrant in India's growing Grandmasters list. Apart from Prraneeth, Koustav Chatterjee, Vignesh NR, and Sayantan Das are three Indian players who won the prestigious title in 2023.

However, only two Indian female players, Koneru Humpy and Harika Dronavalli, have won the Women's Grandmaster title so far. Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa won the Grandmaster title at the age of 12 in 2018 and then beat the current world no.1 Carlsen Magnus in 2022, at the age of 16.

What is Grandmaster?

Apart from a world champion, Grandmaster is the highest individual title a professional chess player can attain. International Chess Federation (FIDE) created this title in 1950 and awarded it to 27 players with no written criteria at the time. Since then, 2027 players have won the Grandmaster title, including 83 from India. Surprisingly, only 40 female chess players have managed to win this prestigious title in 73 years. 

Eligibility and Criteria to Become Grandmaster

• A player must have an Elo rating (Measurement of skills in Chess) of at least 2500 at any point in his/her career.
• A player must achieve three favourable results from a total of at least 27 games in the tournament.
• At least one result must come at the Swiss Tournament with at least 40 participating players with an average Elo rating of 2000-plus.
• The player's Elo rating at the end of the tournament must be at least 2600.
• A player's opponent must have an average Elo rating of 2380.
• At least 33% of the player's opponents must be Grandmasters.
• At least 55% of the player's opponents must hold Fide titles other than Candidate Master and Woman Candidate Master.
• A player's opponents must come from at least three different chess federations (can include from player's own federation)

Apart from the above regulations, a player with peak Elo ratings of 2300 can win the Grandmaster title without any criteria if he/she wins the Women's World Championship, the World Junior Championship, the World Senior Championship, or a Continental Chess Championship.

List of Chess Grandmasters from India

Viswanathan Anand, Tamil Nadu, 1988

Dibyendu Barua, West Bengal, 1991

Praveen Thipsay, Maharashtra, 1997

Abhijit Kunte, Maharashtra, 2000

Krishnan Sasikiran, Tamil Nadu, 2000

Pentala Harikrishna, Andhra Pradesh, 2001

Koneru Humpy, Andhra Pradesh, 2002

Surya Shekhar Ganguly, West Bengal, 2003

Sandipan Chanda, West Bengal, 2003

Ramachandran Ramesh, Tamil Nadu, 2003

Tejas Bakre, Gujarat, 2004

Magesh Chandran Panchanathan, Tamil Nadu, 2006

J. Deepan Chakkravarthy, Tamil Nadu, 2006

Neelotpal Das, West Bengal, 2006

Parimarjan Negi, Delhi, 2006

Geetha Narayanan Gopal, Kerala, 2007

Abhijeet Gupta, Delhi, 2008

Subramanian Arun Prasad, Tamil Nadu, 2008

Sundararajan Kidambi, Tamil Nadu, 2009

R. R. Laxman, Tamil Nadu, 2009

Sriram Jha, Delhi, 2010

Deep Sengupta, West Bengal, 2010

Baskaran Adhiban, Tamil Nadu, 2010

S. P. Sethuraman, Tamil Nadu, 2011

Harika Dronavalli, Andhra Pradesh, 2011

M. R. Lalith Babu, Andhra Pradesh, 2012

Vaibhav Suri, Delhi, 2012

M. R. Venkatesh ,Tamil Nadu, 2012

Sahaj Grover, Delhi, 2012

Vidit Gujrathi, Maharashtra, 2013

M. Shyam Sundar, Tamil Nadu, 2013

Akshayraj Kore, Maharashtra, 2013

V. Vishnu Prasanna, Tamil Nadu, 2013

Debashis Das, Odisha, 2013

Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury, West Bengal, 2013

Ankit Rajpara, Gujarat, 2014

Chithambaram Aravindh, Tamil Nadu, 2015

Karthikeyan Murali, Tamil Nadu, 2015

Ashwin Jayaram, Tamil Nadu, 2015

Swapnil Dhopade, Maharashtra, 2016

S. L. Narayanan, Kerala, 2016

Shardul Gagare, Maharashtra, 2016

Diptayan Ghosh, West Bengal, 2016

Priyadharshan Kannappan, Tamil Nadu, 2016

Aryan Chopra, Delhi, 2017

Srinath Narayanan, Tamil Nadu, 2017

Himanshu Sharma, Haryana, 2017

Anurag Mhamal, Goa, 2017

Abhimanyu Puranik, Maharashtra, 2017

M. S. Thejkumar Karnataka 2017

Saptarshi Roy, West Bengal, 2018

Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, Tamil Nadu, 2018

Nihal Sarin, Kerala 2018

Arjun Erigaisi, Telangana, 2018

Karthik Venkataraman, Andhra Pradesh, 2018

Harsha Bharathakoti, Telangana, 2019

P. Karthikeyan, Tamil Nadu, 2019

Stany G.A., Karnataka, 2019

N. R. Visakh, Tamil Nadu, 2019

Gukesh D, Tamil Nadu, 2019

P. Iniyan, Tamil Nadu, 2019

Swayams Mishra, Odisha, 2019

Girish A. Koushik, Karnataka, 2019

Prithu Gupta, Delhi, 2019

Raunak Sadhwani, Maharashtra, 2019

G. Akash, Tamil Nadu, 2020

Leon Luke Mendonca, Goa, 2020

Arjun Kalyan, Maharashtra, 2021

Raja Rithvik R, Telangana, 2021

Mitrabha Guha, West Bengal, 2021

Sankalp Gupta, Maharashtra, 2021

Bharath Subramaniyam, Tamil Nadu, 2022

Rahul Srivatshav, Telangana, 2022

Pranav V, Tamil Nadu, 2022

Koustav Chatterjee, West Bengal, 2023

Vignesh NR, Chennai, 2023

Sayantan Das, West Bengal, 2023

Vuppala Prraneeth, Telangana, 2023

Aditya Samant, Maharashtra, 2023