Vidit Gujrathi is the senior member of India’s current world-elite generation — born in 1994, almost a decade older than Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, and Arjun Erigaisi, but reaching his strongest play in the same 2023–24 window. He qualified for the 2024 Candidates Tournament via the FIDE Grand Swiss in Riga, finishing in the middle of the Toronto field but contesting decisive games to the final rounds.
Path through the 2010s
Born in Nashik, Maharashtra, in October 1994, Vidit was an established junior player by his early teens and earned the international master title at fifteen. The grandmaster title came in 2013 at age eighteen. Through the 2010s he competed in the Asian circuit and the European Team Championship for clubs in Italy and Slovenia, building rating points methodically rather than through a single breakthrough event. By 2018 he had crossed 2700 and become India’s number-two behind Anand — a position he held until the rise of the next Indian wave displaced him to number five by the end of 2024.
Grand Swiss 2023 and the Candidates
The 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss in Riga was the most important tournament of his career to date. The event ran Swiss-system with the top two finishers qualifying for the next Candidates Tournament; Vidit finished outright second behind Nodirbek Abdusattorov, with a plus-five score that was the strongest single-tournament result of his career. At the 2024 Candidates in Toronto he finished mid-table but contested decisive games to the final rounds — beating both Caruana and Praggnanandhaa with black in late-tournament must-win situations that demonstrated the practical resilience that had earned him the qualification.
Style
His style is more aggressive than either of his Indian peers. He plays the King’s Indian and the Sveshnikov as Black, and his 1.d4 White repertoire ranges through the Catalan and the sharp Sämisch lines of the Nimzo-Indian. His best results have come at events where his deep opening preparation gives him the early-game edge — the 2023 Grand Swiss in particular included several wins out of long forced lines he had prepared specifically for the format.
Indian team and public role
He served as vice-captain of the Indian team at the 2024 Olympiad in Budapest, where India won gold for the first time, with Vidit scoring 8/10 on board three. His public-facing role in Indian chess — as both player and presence on the country’s chess YouTube circuit, where his content reaches several million viewers monthly — has been substantial in making the modern Indian generation visible to a global audience. He continues to play a full classical calendar in 2026 alongside the same public-facing work.