Chennai Grand Masters is an annual closed chess tournament held in Chennai, India.

Aravindh Chithambaram Aravindh Chithambaram Veerappan (born 11 September 1999) is an Indian chess grandmaster. He won the Indian chess championships twice, in 2018 and 2019. Personal life Aravindh Chithambaram Veerappan was born on 11 September 1999 in Thirunaga ...

is the current champion.

2023

The 2023 Chennai Grand Masters was organized from December 15 to December 21 at

The Leela Palace Chennai The Leela Palace Chennai is a 326-room five star deluxe hotel in Chennai, India. It is located at MRC Nagar, Raja Annamalaipuram, in the Adyar Creek area in the southern end of the Marina Beach. The hotel is designed by Atlanta-based architec ...

. It was organized by MGD1, NODWIN Gaming, and

ChessBase ChessBase is a German company that develops and sells chess software, maintains a chess news site, and operates an internet chess server for online chess. Founded in 1986, it maintains and sells large-scale databases containing the moves of recor ...

India, with support from the

Tamil Nadu Government The Government of Tamil Nadu () is the administrative body responsible for the governance of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Chennai is the capital of the state and houses the state executive, legislature and head of judiciary. Under the Const ...

and Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu. The tournament was announced only 4 days prior to its start, which led to criticism that the tournament was held at the last minute to help

Gukesh Dommaraju Gukesh Dommaraju (born 29 May 2006) is an Indian chess grandmaster and the reigning World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, Gukesh is the youngest undisputed world champion, the youngest player to have surpassed a FIDE rating of 2750, doing s ...

and

Arjun Erigaisi Arjun Kumar Erigaisi (born 3 September 2003) is an Indian chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, he earned the title of grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months, 13 days. In September 2024 he became India's top rated player, and in December 2 ...

qualify for the

Candidates Tournament 2024 The 2024 Candidates Tournament was an eight-player chess tournament, held to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship 2024. The tournament took place at The Great Hall in Toronto, Canada, from April 3–22, 2024. The event was ...

. However,

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

deputy president

Viswanathan Anand Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand (born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster. Anand is a five-time World Chess Champion, a two-time World Rapid Chess Champion, a two-time Chess World Cup Champion and a World Blitz Chess Cup Champion. ...

explained that the organization of the tournament is within the rules. After the seventh round, Gukesh and Arjun were tied for the first place with 4.5 points each. The Sonneborn-Berger score was used as the tie-breaker, and Gukesh emerged victorious.

2024

The 2024 edition was India's strongest classical super-tournament of the year. It was held between November 5th and November 11th at the

Anna Centenary Library The Anna Centenary Library (ACL) is an established state library of the Government of Tamil Nadu. It is located at Kotturpuram, Chennai. It is built at a cost of 172 crores (1,720 million). It is named after a former chief minister of Tamil Nad ...

. After the seventh round, there was a three-way tie between

Levon Aronian Levon Grigori Aronian (; born 6 October 1982) is an Armenian chess grandmaster who has represented the United States since 2021. A chess prodigy, he earned the title of grandmaster in 2000, at the age of 17. He is a former world rapid and blit ...

, Arjun Erigaisi, and

. Aravindh was declared the winner after tiebreaks. The challengers section was won by V. Pranav.

Masters

Tiebreaks

The tiebreak was a two-game

blitz Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to: Military uses *Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign *The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War *, several ships of the Prussian, Imperia ...

match, followed by an

armageddon Armageddon ( ; ; ; from ) is the prophesied gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, according to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Armageddon is variously interpreted as either a literal or a ...

if necessary. The time control was 3 minutes with a 2-second increment per move. Aravindh was given a bye because he had a better score in terms of direct encounters, beating Arjun in their game. He then won the final match against Levon Aronian, who proceeded after holding a draw as black in the armageddon game.

Challengers

2025

India's strongest classical super-tournament of the year 2025 will be held from August 6th and August 15th at the

Hyatt Regency Chennai Hyatt Regency Chennai is an 18-storey Hotel rating, five-star luxury hotel located on Anna Salai at Teynampet in Chennai, India. Designed in 1986, the construction of the hotel started in the 1990s. However, the completion was delayed for near ...

Masters

Challengers

References

{{Chess tournaments Invitational chess tournaments Chess in India International sports competitions hosted by India