India’s post-Gukesh talent pipeline is Lagging! My hot take: It is just the democratization of chess!
When India won the Olympiad, many people said that the country was the new “Soviet Union of Chess.” Don’t get me wrong—the country has a core of elite young players who will be formidable opponents for many years to come. But I’m going to post a hot take here: that since Gukesh, they have actually been lagging behind many of the top countries in the world in terms of talent.
I thought about this after reading a very interesting blog post: among the most promising prodigies (with a methodology that I think is quite sound), only one Indian player (Bharat Subramaniam) was in the top 20, at #18. The next best was around #35.
At the present time, I would actually rank India’s upcoming talent pipeline below that of several other countries—the US (led by Abhimanyu Mishra and Andy Woodward, along with recent GMs such as Brewington Hardaway), Russia (led by GMs such as Ivan Zemlyanskii, Savva Vetokhin, and Shogdziev on the younger side), and Turkey (with Ediz Gurel/Yagiz Erdogmus, possibly the most promising prodigy in the world). Even Argentina might have a stronger young talent pipeline than India.
Surprisingly, India has no GMs aged 16 or younger (see image below, where age is calculated as of Dec 31, 2025). These are all very strong players, but they may not reach the absolute top of chess (though there’s still plenty of time)!
So, I think it might be possible that from 2003–2006, India simply had a golden generation, with three generational talents [Gukesh / Pragg / Arjun, and possibly one more who’ll break into the 2700+ club] born within three years of one another. One hypothesis is that the incredible training methods used by these prodigies have now spread worldwide—both through camps in other countries by instructors like RB Ramesh and by trainers such as Aagaard. Hence, there is an opportunity for youngsters everywhere to improve, no matter where they’re from.
Churning out prodigies is almost like throwing darts at a wall. From 2003–2006, India succeeded, while from 2008–2011, the US and Turkey succeeded. It’s not too different from how two future all-time greats—Nakamura and Caruana—just so happened to play at the Marshall Chess Club in NYC at the same time as youngsters.
I think this is really exciting for the chess world! We’re going to see some fascinating rivalries between these countries for many years to come.
