Team India - The Only Nation Based Group On Page 1

Yes, we are excited, so we have to share this news with the whole chess.com community!

In the groups listing we are listed on page 1. With 1156 members at the time of writing this news and each and every member flying Indian Flag, we are the only nation based group on page 1. Overall we are 10th.

For us it is an achievement. For a group which only few months back got kicked out of World League due to lack of participation and got re-activated in late December 2009 with new team of admins and super admins, it's a proud moment. The whole group has reasons to rejoice. Two gentlemen deserve to be specially named for this milestone - Shajian & Mr_Ashok whose tireless effort to improve membership has brought Team India to the position where it finds itself today.

When Team India reached the 1000 members milestone, it started a tournament for the whole community and all 100 positions were taken up quickly. Team India thanks all the "foreign" participants for making the tournament such a great success.

Our detractors may say that with average rating of 1375 we are a weak group or with just 688 points on Team Match Leaderboard we have nothing to show. But let it not be forgotten that Team India accepts all level of players from India, not just the strong ones and it really got going only in late December 2009. With more than 130 matches being played currently, Team India is on it's way!

Ladies and gentlemen, as I said, we are excited.

Thank you for reading this and sharing our excitement.

Jai Ho !

Skand Bhargava

Edit: The Link http://www.chess.com/chessgroups

Great job Shaji and Ashok!  You did a wonderful job.  Hope to see much more wonders ..

 8th now...

Sixth...

YES, Viswanathan Anand

IS

STILL THE WORLD CHAMPION!!!

Anand, Accept Congratulations on behalf of ALL the members of Team India, ALL other Indian Groups and ALL Your Fans Whatever Nationality here on CHESS.COM site.

Bravo! Great Application and Show of Nerves.

Congratulations Anand!

Another landmark - Team India starts it's first 100+players match today - one day after Vishy retains his crown of world championship.

The match is against the mighty Russians and we are out-rated on almost every board - but that is not the issue. The important thing is that Team India has become virtually the face of Indian chess on chess.com. Growing size of Team India (almost 1650 members at the time of writing) and the gradual increase in team sizes of the matches being played, are proof of this.

Currently more than 200 team/vote matches are being played.

While speaking of landmarks, we are now playing more than 200 team matches!

Team India has become today #1 Indian group in team matches leaderboard. 

With total 2550 points at the time of writing, Team India has become a clear leader among Indian groups on the match leaderboard.

We sure are excited with so many things to celebrate in the month of May 2010. Starting with Vishy winning WCC, us playing our first 100+ team match, becoming a 1700+ strong membership (and growing) group and now leading the pack of Indian groups, it's been a joyful month for Team India members.

Hopefully there is more to come!

Well, to be fair, the official USA world league is split into four or five different teams.

That really seems unfair. Or is it that 4 or 5 US groups are allowed in world league? That also seems unfair from another point of view!

BTW Team India which originally represented India in WL, is not part of it now. It may seem funny, we being the #1 Indian group, but around July-August 2009 the super admin of Team India at that time, all of a sudden stopped reporting at this site. He was not banned or anything like that - so it seems something really drastic hapened to him - hopefully he is well and doing fine wherever he is.

But the net result of his not logging-in was that Team India did not respond to a challenge or issue it's own - can't say what. At that time there were no other admins to take care of Team India's activity. A lukewarm attempt was made by staff to search for a new super admin, but nothing came of it and Team India was replaced by another Indian group in WL.

However in late December 2009 Team India got re-activated and the rest, as they say, is history!

Team India plays it's biggest match yet with 140 players on each side. Of course we are outgunned by our opponent Team Europe, which comprises of players from some leading chess playing countries. Nevertheless, it's a landmark for us.

We are now 4th since last 3 weeks (approximately). We are 2114 members at the time of writing...

A new landmark for us: We reached Page 1 on Vote Chess leaderboard with some impressive numbers:

Team Vote Chess Stats

Today we reached Page 1 of match leaderboard. On the way we broke 5000 points glass ceiling! Indians at chess.com will feel deeply satisfied in Team India's achievements in such a short time (after being re-vitalised in December 2009):

1. Groups - Page 1 by number of members (ranked 4th).

2. Vote leaderboard - Page 1 with 79% winning rate (ranked 40th).

3. Match leaderboard - Page 1 & 5048 points (ranked 49th).

Skand Bhargava
http://www.chess.com/groups/home/team-india

Congratulations on your team success!  May your group continue to grow, learn, and have fun. 

There is a Team USA, but it is not in the world league. In the world league, the U.S. is represented by five or six teams, by region. There is U.S. Mid-South, South East, North East, Southwest, etc.

I assume chess.com did it because, while countries such as India and China have far greater population than the U.S., 47.5% of chess.com members are from the U.S. (not counting ones that use international or some random country for whatever reason).

India comes in 2nd with 4.89%. Or in numerical terms, 1,018,552 U.S. to 105,664 for India.

I thought the country list was pretty interesting. Here is a link...

http://www.chess.com/members/member_countries.html

@Flamma_Aquila: Thanks for the link, I remember seeing it some months back and it does make interesting reading.

Splitting USA into 5-6 groups appears to be a bit unfair to USA as it's playing strength is divided and it cannot showcase it's true powers in WL.

On the other hand, other country groups can argue that if you can have multiple groups from one country in WL, then why not from others?

I would also like to know the basis on which a group represents a country in WL. For example I consider that Team India is best qualified to represent India in WL. Is there an official forum where TI's admins can claim the spot? The point is that when countries are being represented by groups, there ought to be a method by which a group is declared to be the best to represent it's country in the next year's tournament.

All The Best To Indian Members Here

On The Occasion Of

India's Independence Day

15th August 2010

Today we have crossed 10,000 team match points and while doing so, we have also climbed to the top half of the Match Points Leaderboard's first page. In doing so, our Team Match players have joined our Vote Chess achievers who were already there!