Grandmaster title is the highest honour awarded by World Chess Federation, also referred to by its French acronym Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE) to chess players. FIDE first awarded this title to 27 players in 1950 while India had to wait till 1988 when Viswanathan Anand bagged the prestigious title.
India witnessed a rapid growth in grandmasters tally and now have 82 chess players with the highest honours, including two female stars. The latest Indian to win the Grandmaster title is Vuppala Prraneeth, 16, while the youngest Indian on the list is Ramesbabu Praggnanandhaa who bagged the title at the age of 12 years in 2018.
Only four Indian players Vuppala Prraneeth, Vignesh NR, Sayantan Das, and Koustav Chatterjee have won the Grandmaster title in 2023. Anand remains India's highest rated Chess player with a rating of 2754 and is currently ranked ninth in the world.
Apart from Anand, only two Indian players Gukesh D (ranked 13th) and Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (ranked 25th) are ranked in the current top 25. Norway's five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen has the highest-ever rating of 2835 and is the only Norwegian in the top 25 of the world rankings by FIDE.
Russia have been a dominant force in Chess with a record 364 grandmaster titles while their rivals Germany have the second-highest number of 118 titles. Russia, Germany, and Ukraine are the only nations with 100-plus grandmasters while 89 chess players from the United States of America (USA) have won the Grandmaster titles.
Despite Russia's dominance in overall grandmaster titles, they have only one grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi is in the top 10 and only 12 in the top 100 right now.
Countries with 50+ Grandmasters:
- Russia - 364
- Germany - 118
- Ukraine - 108
- USA - 89
- India - 82
- Yugoslavia - 75
- China - 53
- Spain - 52
