Mitrabha Guha completes India’s chess pair for the Esports Nations Cup 2026

India will take two grandmasters into the chess event at the Esports Nations Cup 2026, after Mitrabha Guha came through the regional qualifier to claim the country’s second and final spot. He lines up alongside Nihal Sarin, who had already booked his place by a different route, in a field stacked with some of the biggest names in the game.

An unbeaten run through the qualifier

Guha earned his spot the hard way. He topped the Swiss stage of the Middle East, India and Central Asia qualifier as the only player to come through it without a defeat, finishing on six wins and three draws. He then carried that form into the knockouts, beating Syria’s Malek Koniahli and Iran’s Artin Ashraf to seal qualification.

The 24-year-old has been in good touch away from the board too. He won the Commonwealth Chess Championship in the 2025-26 season, adding to the title he had claimed in 2023-24, and arrives at the Esports Nations Cup with momentum behind him.

Sarin in through the rankings

Sarin took the other path into the event. The Esports Nations Cup hands out 64 direct chess invitations off the Champions Chess Tour leaderboard, capped at one per country, and Sarin’s 139 points across the 2025-26 season were enough to land India’s automatic berth. Results at the Speed Chess Championship, the Chess.com Open and the Titled Tuesday Grand Prix all fed into that total.

Each country is allowed a maximum of two players, so Guha’s win means India’s chess line-up is now settled.

A loaded field in Riyadh

The pair will not be short of competition. The chess event brings together 128 players for a prize pool of around 600,000 US dollars, close to 5.7 crore rupees, with a round-robin group stage feeding into a single-elimination playoff. Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Alireza Firouzja and Jan-Krzysztof Duda are among the names already confirmed, so Guha and Sarin will need to be at their sharpest to make a deep run.

Part of a wider Indian push

Chess is only one slice of India’s Esports Nations Cup campaign. Nodwin Gaming, appointed as the country’s national team partner, has also named squads for Dota 2, Moba Legends: 5v5! and Rocket League, with their qualifiers spread across the months before the finals.

The Esports Nations Cup runs in Riyadh from 2 to 29 November, a nation-based event that sets country against country across as many as 16 titles. For India, a chess pairing of two in-form grandmasters is a strong way to start.

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