Sagar Shah breaks down India's board order for the 2026 Chess Olympiad. Praggnanandhaa leads the open team with Gukesh playing board 4 to rebuild form despite being world champion. The women's team starts with Humpy Kumar, including debutant Savita Sanjay on board 5.
Chapters
Hi everyone, this is Sagar Shah. I'm right outside my hotel here in Uzbekistan, uh, Samarkand, and there's big news coming in from the event. The Indian board order has been decided for both the open and women's section. Now today the first round will be played at 3 PM local time, which is 3:30 PM in India, only 30 minutes difference. And the board order at an Olympiad is very important because this is how the players will be decided on how they will sit in every round. Once it's fixed, it's fixed forever. The only change that can happen is you have 5 players and 1 player decides to drop. Let's imagine you have board order and the 2nd player decides to drop, then the 3rd player goes to 2nd, 4th player goes to 3rd, 5th player goes to 4th board. This is how Things always work out. So now in the open section, we have an amazing team. We have on board we have Prag, Gukesh, Arjun, Nihal, and Vidit. And so all everyone was thinking who will be on board one? Who will be on board two? Because you know for two Olympiads, Gukesh has been on board one 2022, 2024. And he's won gold medal in both of them for the individual performance. But recently his form has been a bit off, so everyone was thinking, should Gukesh be given board one? And then Pragnananda has been in hot shape, you know. He won the Norway Chess, then he won the Grand Chess Tour and all of it. So the decision of the captain Srinath Narayanan along with the team is that Prag Will be on board number one, which is very, very logical. And I was also feeling that Prag will get board one. I was always talking about it in my streams wherever I was making some predictions. Board number two goes to Arjun Erigaisi. Now, Arjun has been the highest rated Indian player for a long time. It's just that in recent time, Prag has surpassed him. by 2 Elo points. He's 2761, Arjun is 2759, not even a big difference. So Arjun gets board 2, uh, and I think it's very logical. Arjun is a strong player, and, um, you know, I was thinking maybe they would put Arjun on board 3 so that he can score heavily, because against the lower-rated opponents, Arjun scores very well. Uh, But 2, Arjun on 2 seems fair. Then Nihal came on board 3. Now this is very interesting that Nihal Sarid, who is making— it's not his debut in Olympiad because he has played for the B team, uh, in, in India when it happened in Chennai, but it's the first time he'll be playing for the main team and he's on board 3, but by rating he's higher rated than Gukesh. Gukesh is 2701, Nihal is 2718, and now Gukesh is on board 4. So the world champion being on board number 4, this is rare, but it's also very interesting decision on 2 counts. Firstly, Gukesh take— being ready to take board 4 for me is like an amazing thing because, you know, sometimes you are the world champion and you want to be on Board one. I think it's always been the case that a world champion plays on board one. I have never has it ever happened like Magnus is always on board one, Vishy's on board one, Kramnik is usually on board one. When Kasparov was number one, he was on board one. So Akarpov maybe was on board one. So this has always been that the world champion gets board one, but Gukesh has taken the decision. and I mean the team together, that he'll play on board 4. And I think that's a very powerful decision because for Gukesh to get back in shape, if he can do that on board 4, that would be amazing. But he would also face players who are lower rated than him, and it'll be interesting to see what shape he comes back— comes into this tournament. And then on board 5, which was expected, is Vidit. And I think he brings a lot of stability there whenever someone's not going to play. विदित विल गो टू बोर्ड फोर एंड हिम बीइंग इन गुड शेप एट द ग्लोबल चेस लीग इस वेरी नाइस सो इफ लेट्स से अर्जुन डिसाइड्स नॉट टू प्ले और प्रग डिसाइड्स नॉट टू प्ले देन गुकेश विल मूव टू बोर्ड थ्री विदित विल मूव टू बोर्ड फोर आई थिंक विदित इज समवन हु माइट बी अ बिट टाइ as they have had a little bit of a break. So this is the board order. Let me know your thoughts, what you feel. There's also a very interesting board order element in the women's section. I always felt that Hampi would take board 1, there was no doubt, and that happened. But there was always a question that will Divya, who is slightly higher rated than Vaishali, take board 2, or Vaishali would be on board 2? Well, the thing is, Vaishali is now on board 2. Which is interesting and I guess also a good idea because she is the Women's World Championship challenger. Divya is known for her heavy hitting on board 3, so she goes to board 3. And then we have Vantika Agrawal who is on board 4. And Vantika, well, she's played incredibly well in the last Olympiad and we hope that she continues her form. And Savita, who is making her debut, the current Asian champion, will be on board number 5. So this is the women's section that we have, and I think also was very keen to know who would be on top, Divya or Vaishali, and Vaishali is on number 2. I think in the open section, the board orders were kind of as expected. A few things that you should note is one is Nodirbek Abdusattorov has decided to take board 1 and not Javokhir Sindarov, in spite of Javokhir being the higher-rated player. So that's an interesting decision by Team Uzbekistan. And also China has always maintained that they would keep Ding Liren on board 1 and Wei Yi on board 2, even though I think that in terms of the one who is always playing more and in, in form, I think वही कुड़ वेरी वेल बी ऑन बोर्ड वन एंडिंग ऑन बोर्ड टू बट चाइना हैज़ अलवेज़ कैप्ट दिस ट्रेडिशन एंड दिस हैज़ कंटिन्यूड सो बोर्ड वन फॉर बोथ उजबेकिस्तान एंड चाइना इज़ द लोअर रेटेड स्लाइटली लोअर रेटेड प्लेयर बीइंग ऑन बोर्ड वन देन ऑन बोर्ड टू बट दैट्स कंपलीटली So has the other teams. I'll put the link of chess results in the description so you can check it out and then you will know what exactly is happening. Yeah, so the it's going to be eleven rounds of chess Swiss League. Everyone plays all eleven rounds. The team that scores the most points will be at the top. Three three o'clock here local time is around three thirty in India. We will be streaming live from the Expo. Well, there could be a lot of noise. No, I'm not sure. I hope that everything goes well, but I'll see you. And well, the day one in Samarkand was a very action-packed day with press conference, opening ceremony, and all of that happening. But now it's down to chess from tomorrow— from today. See you all. Bye-bye. Take care.
