Vidit Gujrathi

Instead, we went deep into openings from a learning and teaching perspective.

We discussed memorization, versus understanding the importance of why questions when learning are openings, integrity and consistency in the repertoire, system openings versus mainlines, as well as Surya's personal coaching experiences with stars like Pragnananda, Vidit, among others.

Surya also inspired me to work on my first ever opening course on Chessable, The Slav Repertoire.

Careful followers of this channel will see lots of alignment between me and Surya on the importance of the crucial why question.

So you're an excellent guest to maybe ask you particular questions when it comes to opening preparation, opening course preparation, particularly, if you don't mind.

Thank you, Kent, for the nice introduction and also for your kind words.

So my approach to opening changed over the years, like when I was much younger, then the journey with Anand, and then now also training at different levels, like whether it's a 1400 player or I'm training someone like Vidit or Praag or, you know, like all top Indian players.

So it's completely different aspect.

But there were also players that went from one...

Like, I think Vidit, for example, uh, uh, Arjun I think played in both.

Uh, many players, uh, played in both.

Uh-

Uh, uh, I mean, you w- you were playing for the Alpine APL Pipers together with Magnus Carlsen-

[laughs] Yes

... and, and Vidit.

Uh, I mean, it is...

I mean, to start with, like India had a massive chess boom driven, um, both by the size of the country and the economic resources that the country has, and also because, okay, Gukesh became world champion and a lot of other young players around his age at the same time came to the top.

You know, Prag and Arjun, uh, and not to mention there are many other players, Nihal and Aravind and, I mean, Vidit and, and so, like, they had, they had a really, really strong, uh, chess boom.

Mm-hmm.

And money just started flowing in.

Yep

...

Vidit is very stable.

Gukesh can always turn on the heat.

It was Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Hans Niemann, Levon Aronian, Wanda Liang, who played very, very well on board five.

Team India, which had Gukesh on board for it, had Prague, it had Arjun, it had Nihal, it had Vidit.

Nihal probably didn't have the tournaments he would have liked, and I don't think Prague and Arjun necessarily won as many games as they would have liked.

Considering Origins got the kind of reputation of being a very good player, beating 25, 26 hundreds.