You know how sport always has those players who are in and around the elite for significant chunks of their career, but somehow have never been able to break in right at the top as winners of big events? Chess has that in the form Anish Giri. He’s been one of the nearly-men of this sport for almost a decade. 10 years ago, his ELO was more than 2800 in classical chess, he had qualified for the Candidates tournament, he was universally accepted as one of the best players in the world. However, two appearances at Candidates tournaments aside, Giri’s career has been one of what-ifs.
He’s not yet willing to give up to his fate, he says, for he thinks he can still be world champion, and that he’s still playing at a good enough level. He points to how some of his peers like Magnus Carlsen don’t have the motivation to play classical chess anymore. “Of course, Carlsen has won everything, I don’t have that problem, so motivation is still very much there,” he tells ESPN on the sidelines of the Chennai Grand Masters 2025.
Today, Giri is not spoken of with the same deference as the player who qualified for the Candidates tournaments in 2016 and 2021 was once. The likes of Gukesh Dommaraju, R Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi, Alireza Firouzja, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and Vincent Keymer have heralded a revolution that has brought down the average age in the fight at the top elite chess. Giri, though, says the challenge for him now with the younger lot is pretty similar to what it was when he was young in the mid-2010s, fighting against the likes of Carlsen, Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik in elite tournaments.
He says his chances of being world champion now aren’t any lower than what they were back then. “My tournaments are fine, but also I play with my other colleagues, with my friends, who are also strong players. And I play training games. And I just see that I’m still very strong,” he says.
Giri says that if his career ended today, he would be happy with what he has achieved but termed it a crime against his career if he finished now without giving the world championship another proper shot, in this current cycle. Maybe, the time to assess where he stands in the chess world will come after the qualification process for the 2026 Candidates tournament ends.
“I would go on the beach and relax. I have some money I can spend on the beach and everything… As much as I would love to retire, when I see myself playing or training games, I just cannot do it right now. I think I have everything it takes. If I get some wind in the back, if I get lucky here and there, I can achieve the highest goals still,” he says.
Giri’s confidence comes from performances like the one at the 2025 Sharjah Masters, where he beat Abdusattorov to win the title.
He maintains this confidence despite how much chess has changed since he burst onto the scene as a young prodigy — with the emergence of computers. “Chess has been changing very quickly. It’s been changing throughout history, but what previously took 10 years, now changed in one year. When I tell these young guys what it was like ten years ago, they look at me like I’m some kind of grandpa,” he says with a laugh.
It is that experience, though. which Giri is now banking on. When analysing positions with his younger opponents, he recognises that his chess understanding is now at a stage where he can compete against all of them.
“When I play a lot of players, what I immediately see is mistakes. Sometimes they’re committing them after a long thought,” he says.
In addition, Giri’s defensive prowess means that he is always in contention: he barely loses games of classical chess. In 2025, of the 34 games of classical chess he has played, he’s lost one and drawn 24. “Because I am such a good defender, I can draw even when I’m playing badly,” Giri says.
Even at the Chennai Grand Masters, where he has seven draws in the first seven rounds so far, Giri says he should’ve lost two games – against Vidit Gujrathi and Nihal Sarin but eventually found defensive resources to draw those games.
It’s that experience, that defensive prowess, that general being-so-difficult-to-beat-ness which makes Giri a threat in this upcoming classical swing at the Grand Swiss and the World Cup. With that little bit of luck that Anish Giri continues to seek, he fancies himself as one of many who could potentially dethrone Gukesh as world champion.
