Indian chess team celebrates its Olympiad win with a unique Twitter Chat

The team that secured India's maiden Chess Olympiad gold celebrated its victory with a special Twitter Chat using the service's new conversation settings. 

In this exclusive Twitter Chat, hosted by the vice-captain Srinath Narayanan and the comic Samay Raina. They engaged in light-hearted conversations with Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand, captain Vidit Gujrathi along with the other members of the Indian team including Koneru Humpy, Dronavalli Harika, Vantika Agrawal, Nihal Sarin, Divya Deshmukh, Praggnanandhaa and Bhakti Kulkarni. The winning team talked about its Chess Olympiad experience and also shared some tips for budding chess players, on how to prepare for a tournament as big as the Olympiad. The chat also saw the participation of another eminent Indian player, Adhiban Baskaran, and streamer Sagar Shah.

Thanks to @TwitterIndia we are doing a session of Q and A with the Indian team.#ChessTweetChat https://t.co/WswL4vkvWv

— Samay Raina (@ReheSamay) September 13, 2020

India and Russia on Sunday were announced as joint winners of the FIDE Chess Olympiad as Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh lost connection to their games in the second round and had to forfeit. In a first, the olympiad was conducted online. 

Originally, Russia was declared as the winners, but India filed an appeal and after investigation, both India and Russia were announced as joint winners.

During the chat, Vishwanathan Anand was questioned about his views on FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich’s suggestion of staging a Champions Series between India and Russia.

Its a good idea, like the matches that Russia has played with China for many years or other team matches that are organised

— Viswanathan Anand (@vishy64theking) September 13, 2020

Even Viswanathan Anand got involved on Twitter and wrote:

it is an interesting development, definitely introduces new people to the game of chess, which is a good thing

— Viswanathan Anand (@vishy64theking) September 13, 2020

The players then went on to share their experiences, their most cherished moments as well as their other key highlights of this memorable chat:

I would like to thank each and every member of the team , the captains, the streamers and our viewers for making my first Chess Olympiad a memorable one.

— Vantika (@vantikachess) September 13, 2020

it was nice to get a team gold, and I enjoyed being part of the team journey

— Viswanathan Anand (@vishy64theking) September 13, 2020

I think winning against china with the score of 4-2 and directly qualifying to quarterfinals was my favorite moment #ChessTweetChat

— Divya Deshmukh (@DivyaDeshmukh05) September 13, 2020

Compared to other games I spent more time analyzing my game with Batsuren Dambasuren (Mongolia) the game was very complex #ChessTweetChat

— Praggnanandhaa (@rpragchess) September 13, 2020