International Chess Day 2023: History, Why is it celebrated, Number of Grand Masters From Across The Globe

International Chess Day 2023 is celebrated on Wednesday (July 20). In fact, it is celebrated every year since 1966 on July 20, a day when International Chess Federation (FIDE) was found back in 1924.

The idea of celebrating International Chess Day was proposed by UNESCO, and it has been celebrated as such since 1966 after it was established by FIDE, which organizes chess events and competitions on this day around the world.

Milions of chess players across the world celebrate International Chess Day and this year's theme is to take the game to more people, meaning chess for all. So, the best way to celebrate the occasion is by introducing the game to a new person.

History

The origin of Chess dates back to the seventh century when the game was called Chaturaṅga (Sanskrit), Chatrang (Persian) or Shatranj (Arabic). The game, that moved into different continents, later evolved into sport, starting from 1873 to 1945.

The first Olympiad was held in 1924, when FIDE was formed to just organize that one event, but the federation remained to see the growth of the game globally. The game that requires a lot of skill, is one of the most challenging indoor board game.

Why is International Chess Day celebrated?

The International Chess Day is celebrated to mark the founding day of the International Chess Federation (FIDE). Chess is a game that can be played across all age groups and this year's International Chess Day theme also sheds light on making the game more accessible

This year's theme suggests to expand the chess-playing community by introducing friends and family to the sport and play an enriching game of chess with them, eventually teaching them the rules of the game.

Who is a grand master?

Grand Master is a title given to chess players by FIDE and is the highest title a chess player can attain equal to the title of a world champion. The title of Grandmaster is open to all players regardless of gender. The first time a GM was awarded in official competition was back in 1907.

However, FIDE first awarded the Grand Master title to 27 players in 1950, while India had to wait till 1988 for their first title with Viswanathan Anand being the first from the country to receive the prestigious title.

India witnessed a rapid growth in grandmasters tally and now have 82 chess players with the highest honours. The latest Indian to bag the Grandmaster title is 16-year-old Vuppala Prraneeth, while the youngest on the list is R Praggnanandhaa who won the title in 2018 as a 12-year-old.

How many Grand Masters do every country have?

Russia hold the record with 364 grandmaster titles followed by Germany, who have 118 titles and Ukraine with 109 title, making them the only three nations with over a hundred Grand Masters. USA in fourth has 89 Grand Masters followed by India with 82, completing the top 5.

Countries with 50 or more Grand Masters

Country	Grand Masters
Russia	364
Germany	118
Ukraine	108
USA	89
India	82
Yugoslavia	75
China	53
Spain	52

Indian Grand Masters List

Grand Master	Title Year	Gender
Viswanathan Anand	1988	Male
Dibyendu Barua	1991	Male
Praveen Male Thipsay	1997	Male
Abhijit Kunte	2000	Male
Krishnan Sasikiran	2000	Male
Pentala Harikrishna	2001	Male
Koneru Humpy	2002	Female
Sandipan Chanda	2003	Male
Surya Shekhar Ganguly	2003	Male
Ramesh R. B.	2003	Male
Tejas Bakre	2004	Male
Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2006	Male
Neelotpal Das	2006	Male
Parimarjan Negi	2006	Male
Magesh Chandran Panchanathan	2006	Male
Gopal G. N.	2007	Male
Arun Prasad, S.	2008	Male
Abhijeet Gupta	2008	Male
R. R. Laxman	2009	Male
Sundararajan Kidambi	2009	Male
Adhiban B.	2010	Male
Deep Sengupta	2010	Male
Sriram Jha	2010	Male
Dronavalli Harika	2011	Female
S. P. Sethuraman	2011	Male
Sahaj Grover	2012	Male
Lalit Babu M. R.	2012	Male
Suri Vaibhav	2012	Male
M. R. Venkatesh	2012	Male
Debashis, Das	2013	Male
Vidit Gujrathi	2013	Male
Akshayraj Kore	2013	Male
Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury	2013	Male
Shyam Sundar M.	2013	Male
Vishnu Prasanna V.	2013	Male
Ankit Rajpara	2014	Male
Aravindh Chithambaram	2015	Male
Ashwin Jayaram	2015	Male
Karthikeyan Murali	2015	Male
Shardul Gagare	2016	Male
Diptayan Ghosh	2016	Male
Kannappan Priyadharshan	2016	Male
Narayanan S. L.	2016	Male
Swapnil Dhopade	2016	Male
Aryan Chopra	2017	Male
Himanshu, Sharma	2017	Male
Anurag Mhamal	2017	Male
Srinath Narayanan	2017	Male
Abhimanyu Puranik	2017	Male
M. S. Thejkumar	2017	Male
Erigaisi Arjun	2018	Male
Karthik Venkataraman	2018	Male
Nihal Sarin	2018	Male
Praggnanandhaa R	2018	Male
Saptarshi Roy	2018	Male
Bharathakoti, Harsha	2019	Male
A. Koushik Girish	2019	Male
Gukesh D	2019	Male
Iniyan P.	2019	Male
Karthikeyan P.	2019	Male
Prithu Gupta	2019	Male
Stany G. A.	2019	Male
Swayams Mishra	2019	Male
Visakh N. R.	2019	Male
Akash G.	2020	Male
Raunak Sadhwani	2020	Male
Arjun Kalyan	2021	Male
Leon Luke Mendonca	2021	Male
Mitrabha Guha	2022	Male
Pranav V	2022	Male
Pranav Anand	2022	Male
Rahul Srivatshav P	2022	Male
Raja Harshit	2022	Male
Raja Rithvik R	2022	Male
Sankalp Gupta	2022	Male
Bharath Subramaniyam	2022	Male
Aditya Mittal	2023	Male
Sayantan Das	2023	Male
Pranesh M	2023	Male
Vignesh N R	2023	Male