Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, Divya Deshmukh to lead India vs the USA in unique chess battle

Indian Express

01-05-2025

World champion Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi and Divya Deshmukh will lead India against Team USA in a never-before-seen team chess event that pits two of the most successful nations in the sphere of 64 squares. The exhibition event — christened Checkmate: USA vs India — will be held on October 4 this year in front of a live audience of 2,500 fans at the Esports Stadium Arlington in Texas.
While there are national events in chess like the Olympiad, this event will have intricacies woven into it that make it stand out from those events. Sample this, the event will have an esports feel to it since the venue for it — the Esports Stadium Arlington — is a 1,00,000 square feet arena that can accommodate up to 2,500 fans and will have 90-foot-tall LED displays showing broadcast of the games. This will be a radical shift from the usual chess halls, where a library-like silence usually prevails. Then, before the game, the national anthems of both countries will be played out at the arena, which is also unusual in chess. To give the American team a 'home advantage' — another unheard of concept in chess — all five players representing the USA will play with white pieces while the organizers have said they are exploring the prospect of playing a similar contest in India later on.
Unlike the Olympiad, the five games in the India vs USA clash will not take place simultaneously, they will be held one after the other. Each game will be played with a time control of 10 minutes per player. If this game gets drawn, there will be an 'overtime game' where each player will have five minutes. If this too ends in a draw, there will be a 'shootout game' where each player has one minute per player. This continues until a winner emerges.
The organisers said that the clash will see current world no 3 Gukesh, who last year became the youngest world champion in the history of the sport, facing off against world no 2 Hikaru Nakamura while world no 4 Erigaisi duels world no 5 Fabiano Caruana. In the women's section, Divya Deshmukh will take on Carissa Yip while in the U15 section, Ethan Vaz will take on Tanitoluwa Adewumi. On the final board of the five-board contest, popular streamer Levy Rozman (an international master popularly known as Gotham Chess, representing the USA) will take on Chessbase India's Sagar Shah (also an international master).
'This is the kind of event that elevates chess to the next level. India has become one of the most exciting forces in global chess, and I'm thrilled to take them on in front of a live crowd here in the US. We want to show the world that America is home to some of the best players in the game—and that chess can be as thrilling and competitive as any major sport,' Hikaru Nakamura, current world no 2 was quoted as saying by the organisers in a statement.
Checkmate Strategic Ventures, the organizers of the event, said that they were looking to 'reshape the future of chess entertainment' and 'reimagine chess for a new era' by making it into more of a spectacle. Currently, the biggest struggle the sport faces is getting screen time on television networks.
'Chess is a global language, spoken by over 600 million players—and yet, its full power has never truly been unleashed on the world's biggest screens. After witnessing the sold-out crowds and millions of (online) viewers at the FIDE Candidates 2024, it became clear: chess is no longer just a game. It's a spectacle waiting for its stage,' Salim Belcadi of Checkmate Strategic Ventures, lead organizer of the series, said in a statement.
The cheapest tickets for the event, which went on sale on Thursday, were for $120 (approximately Rs 10,000) with VIP tickets available for $350 (approximately Rs 35,000).