Are we Indian players really that weak as chess.com suggests?

I think it is time we remove or delete this forum. It is completely damaging, and is going to show us in poor light in front of the world.

Our rating might be low because of so many issues.

• As told by Mr. Vijay as we are chasing members this is bound to happen.
• I attribute this to poor connectivity also because of which I was not online for the past 12 days.

we should not rate us only with Average ratings only. The other things like Vote chess is also there.

• One more point I want to bring to notice is that now we are chasing Team match points also, so we are starting as many matches as possible. An average player can play only around 10 - 15 matches so our strength in some matches are very poor.

One humble request these forums can be posted in TI or IM not in public forum.

I think the avarage says nothing here. Many Indian players have an account, so what? It would be better to compare the top best players against each other. There is that and you don't know what an online rating really means.

I haven't looked into it, but it is true India is not a traditional chess country. Take Russia then, it has or had a very real network to produce strong players! (Russian players are still very strong, but I mean the difference was larger some decades ago.) Of course Holland is also a chess country, but you can't compare that to superpower countries with millions of people. For its size, I think it does rather well though.

The numbers indicate chess is popular in India and more specifically that chess.com is a popular site for beginning chess players in India.  I'm answering this although I understand the OP is old and the title is not serious, just meant to attract attention.

I can change this situation provided there is an integrated chess coaching network.

In this WL 2013 match against France as of now Team India has only 3 players above 2000 rating, whereas France has 10. The match hasn't started yet (will start tomorrow), so may be there will be one or two more added to this, but it surely tells the story.

http://www.chess.com/groups/team_match?id=240356

With more than 5000 members in the group, does it not reflect how weak average Indian player is? I think it also has a lot to do with unmethodical way of learning to play chess at young age. There are very few chess coaching schools in India where it can be learnt in the right way.

These various indian groups may not be the strongest but they are certainly the most honest.....

Agreed.

Chess in India is essentially a "churn-factory" for Under-10 kids. Talent gets recognized ... the best of the best are picked ...  Only they are groomed. Everyone else drops off and moves on with their lives. Most adults that still take chess up as a hobby AND  play online are really marginally decent at best (not reflective of the sheer # of the country's higher-rated players) as they rarely have venues/time to play serious OTB.

Also explains why it is close to impossible for any adult to find a "adult playing chess club" in major indian metros (including my home town Chennai where Anand frequented the Tal Chess Club at the Russian center)

Even the open tourneys for the public are few-and-far-between (compared to an average 2-3  swiss venues I can walk into in Dallas almost every weekend)

 So good luck finding strong-rated "adults" on chess.com as statistical data points as they really don't take online chess seriously.  The OTB players I do know seem to prefer the other servers! (ICC may be a better data set!)

India must be one of the countries with least sporting culture, It is proved in every olympics(of course there are much more serious problems for vast majority and also the government to worry about sports). Even in cricket,which is supposedly a religion,only a few thousand play or get a chance to play at organised club level.

on chess.com i think most indians are like me who does not  know or even if they know even follow opening principles

I am an Indian player too, but not by nationality, but by ethnicity. It is just that there aren't as many well known chess players from India as other countires for some odd reason (anand, harikrisnna, Negi, and giri, are all of indian descent, i dont know anyone else). They are not publically as well known as European or North American players. I think a lot of indian players are just starting to play chess by finally getting internet access as the concept of the internet in India has only been brought out in the last 10 years (when i went there, it was the stone age ---> technology)

Chess is somewhat popular in India, but not many people have the resources to play it, as much as they'd like I think. It is embarrasing though to see that there aren't more great chess players come out of India.

It's all about immersion in day-to-day life. If you've lived in India as an adult (I did as a college student), life is psychotically fast-paced and investing seriously in a hobby becomes twice as hard if you're not given easy access to areas that allow you to immerse yourself in it.

For example : areas that favor/promote chess immersion in a culture:

- Fun chess promotional activities like Chess in the park/Simuls etc.
- A scholastic program that doesn't just cater to the top 1% of the bell curve. 
- Casual venues/coffee shops where people regularly play
- A strong + solid chess club with weekly OTB tournaments
- A chance for "adults" to mix with really strong mentors

Europe and the US have many access points for this. 

The Internet alone does not magically substitute for a lack of the above.

indians are great in chess but all the players dont play chess.com

Those groups are filled with players who come on chess.com to chat and socialize and don't even have a FIDE rating.Simply put,they're extremely weak.Their average rating of 1300 or 1200 is no surprise.I know of many good 2000+ FIDE rated  Indian players who play online but few of them are on chess.com and almost none of them play turn based chess.

epic thread necro

here i say it  anyone who is here can challenge me i can probably defeat everyone out here  seriously  

Can I join your groups?

team India have 15000+ players right now but there are too many players who never logged in after 2014 and they are highly rated players not sure why they leave chess.com.

What are percentages of people from each country that play chess?  If you have a lot of people who like to play, even if they're weak, it may lower your average rating even if you are strong at the top.

For example, I know of some schools in my area who discourage poor academic students from taking the SAT's, the college entrance test, so they can have a higher average score for their school.  Some of the best high schools have lower-than-average SAT scores because almost all their students take the SAT's, even the weaker students.