Gukesh and Arjun reach stratospheric heights in Olympiad chess | Data

India's historic Chess Olympiad performance analyzed, focusing on individual ELOp ratings and standout players since 1972.

India secured two gold medals — one in the open category and the other in the women’s category — at the 45th Chess Olympiad at Budapest. This was not only the country’s best performance at the most prestigious team event in chess, but it also featured some superlative individual performances. This article will focus only on the open section.

The Chess Olympiad has been played since 1927. For years, the erstwhile Soviet Union dominated the event and later Russia did. In terms of individual performances, the creative genius Mikhail Tal leads all players in win percentage (81.2%) among those who played at least four Olympiads for their federation in the open section (Table 1). Tal won five individual gold and two silver medals and helped the USSR win eight gold medals. His compatriot, former world champion Anatoly Karpov, who went on to represent Russia later, has a win percentage of 80.3% — three individual golds and six team golds. Garry Kasparov, reckoned to be one of the top three all-time greats, is listed seventh with a win percentage of 78.7% — three individual golds and eight team golds.

Table 1 | Players who played in at least four Olympiads, ordered on winning % (top 10). In the table, Ind. : Individual

The above table only looks at the winning percentage and does not account for the strength of the opposing players. This is measured by the ‘performance ELO rating’ or ELOp, calculated based on the player’s ELO rating and that of their opponent. ELOp data is available from the 1972 Olympiad.

When all the players for whom the ELOp is available in the open section in each Olympiad are ranked (Table 2), India’s D. Gukesh stands out. His ELOp of 3056 is the best-ever performance by an individual in an Olympiad since 1972. Only those players who have played at least five games in a single Olympiad have been considered for this list. Gukesh managed to score 9 points in 10 games on Board 1, which is the toughest. That is why the equally worthy performance of his compatriot, Arjun Erigaisi, on Board 3, earning him 10 points in 11 games, got him a slightly lower ELOp of 2968. Only Andrei Volokitin of Ukraine managed a better ELOp than Arjun, though he did so on Board 5, the lowest board, in the 2016 Olympiad. Other prominent players such as Kasparov (in 2002) and Vladimir Kramnik (in 1992) are also featured in this list.

Table 2 | Top 15 performances in a single Olympiad (min. 5 games), data only since 1972

Chart 3 plots the total games played by each player against their ELOp. Only players with a ELOp of 2500 and who have played 10 games or more are shown. If ELOp is considered across Olympiads (since 1972) and we try to find out the strongest-ever performance, Gukesh (currently World No. 5 in the ELO live ratings) and Arjun (World No. 3) stand out. However, they have only played in two Olympiads (21 and 22 games each). Kasparov played in 82 games across multiple Olympiads and registered a stellar ELOp of 2806 (only the third player to have an average above 2800). Kramnik’s ELOp was 2787 in 90 games.