Since D Gukesh’s victory at the World Championships in December last year, Indian chess has been dominating the sport in international events.
Soon after Gukesh’s victory against Ding Liren, Koneru Humpy became the 2024 FIDE Women’s World Rapid Championship. Meanwhile, fast forward to July 2025, Divya Deshmukh won the FIDE Women’s World Cup, beating Humpy in an all-Indian final.
R Praggnanandhaa, the current India No. 1, is one of the leading Grandmasters in the world. He also turned only 20-years-old on Sunday. He also won the Tata Masters this year, defeating Gukesh in a tie-breaker final.
D Gukesh and Arjun Erigaisi made R Praggnanandhaa insecure
Recently, he appeared on a YouTube podcast show and spoke about his season last year, where he couldn’t reach the levels of Gukesh or Arjun Erigaisi. Gukesh became the new World Champion and Arjun became the second Indian (since Viswanathan Anand) to cross the 2800 Elo Rating. Praggnanandhaa revealed that in the past, he would get insecure when others from his generation would perform better than him.
“No, not right now. But I guess in the past (they did),” he said.
When pressed to reveal who made him feel insecure, he said, “Just the players from my generation, whenever they were doing (well) it was putting some pressure on me, I mean I was putting pressure on myself, but I started seeing them as inspiration… now whenever they do well, I get this extra motivation. I want to push myself. It doesn’t come as a pressure but as an inspiration and I want to do well.”
“Mostly (players) from my generation. Let’s say Gukesh or Arjun (Erigaisi) do well. Or Nodirbek (Abdusattarov). When they do well, I feel like I can do it as well. So I tried to put pressure on myself which is not a good thing. I mean getting inspired from them is a different thing. Nowadays, I am better at it because last year I didn’t have a great year while Gukesh won the world championship, Arjun crossed 2800. All these things just inspired me so much. I was seeing their games so closely, trying to understand. It inspired me and I think that’s one of the reasons I feel that extra energy I have when I play games nowadays. That inspiration that comes from them,” he further added.
But he also feels that he is not insecure anymore, stating, “When you just want to give your best and not worry about the results, I don’t think there is anything to be worried about.”