Chess Olympiad: Pragg and Vaishali, the golden siblings of Indian chess

When R. Praggnanandhaa was making waves after his spectacular performance in the FIDE World Cup around this time last year, Vaishali Rameshbabu was still better known as the elder sister of the prodigy ‘who also plays chess.’ A year on, the Chennai duo are now basking in the glory of being a rare golden sibling of the sport in the country.

The Indian teams are the flavour of world chess at the moment after clinching a historic double at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest, where Pragg was a key figure in the men’s team while Vaishali showed great resilience in sealing important matches for the women’s team. An undefeated men’s team put it across Slovenia 3.5-0.5 in their final game while the women accounted for Kazakhstan 3-0.5 on Sunday.

The family has been always a bedrock of strength in the journey of Pragg, 19, and her 23-year-old sister who became only the third woman Grandmaster of the country last year after Koneru Humpy and Harika Dronavalli. A photo of Nagalakshmi, their self-effacing mother who always travels with them on tour, looking on with Pragg handling the media during the 2023 World Cup in Baku went viral in the social media.

This time around, the mum is in Hungary to rustle up comfort food to the children’s liking, while father Rameshbabu was busy fielding calls from the media on Sunday evening.  “More than the siblings’ success what delights me most is that India, for the first time, have won both events. It’s a first. We are making the world sit up and take notice,’’ he told The Telegraph.

After making quiet moves on the fringes which saw Vaishali earn her first GM norm in 2019, last year turned out to be a breakout one for the shy Vaishali who scored big to emerge triumphant in FIDE’s Women’s Grand Swiss in Douglas, the capital of Isle of Mann. The success earned her a berth for the Candidates’ tournament in April, 2024 while she was also a part of the Indian contingent for Hangzhou Asian Games last year.

In October 2023, she won her third GM norm to become the third Indian women GM after more than a decade – Humpy had become the country’s first in 2002 and Dronavalli got the seal in 2011. The duo had, quite expectedly, become India's first-ever Grandmaster siblings.

The Chess Olympiad was their first overseas event where the siblings had gone on to make India proud together. And this could be just the beginning!