12 Things I Learned From The Budapest Olympiad
A Postmortem
It’s been about a week since the Budapest Olympiad concluded, and I wanted to share some reflections on my experience. It was my first Olympiad in person—I had happened to just finish playing a couple tournaments in Europe with thechessnerd, so we figured why not visit Hungary for the biggest event in chess?
And I’m very glad we did, as it felt like history unfolding right in front of us…plus it was just a bomb of chess culture, not to mention super fun. I’ve followed several Olympiads closely before, but seeing one live was a completely different story.
We arrived in the evening of September 15th, just before the famous Bermuda Party. And we were lucky enough to be granted a media pass for the final five rounds of the tournament, allowing special access to the playing hall and media center.
There were a ton of highlights from the trip—I got the chance to see so many top players for the first time while meeting a bunch of fantastic people from chess media. I also feel I learned a lot in the past two weeks about the chess world in general, which I’d like to share here. So without any further ado, here are my top 12 takeaways:
India’s dynasty is only just beginning
It was already clear at the 2022 Chennai Olympiad that India was on the verge of taking over. But in Budapest they didn’t just arrive. They dominated—truly displaying their class in both sections, especially with the Open team winning gold by a four-point margin (i.e. a full two match wins).
Of course I was personally rooting for the U.S. teams, but it was also incredible to watch India’s insane run. And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer team: Gukesh, & co. were constantly taking photos with fans, signing autographs, and never complaining, never losing focus. Now Gukesh, Arjun, Pragg, Vaishali, Divya, and Vantika are only going to get stronger, and how many more players are on their way after them?
Kazakhstan is the next Uzbekistan
The Uzbekistani team made waves when they won Chennai in 2022. It seems that years of heavy investment into raising young talent paid off, with Abdusattorov, Sindarov, Yakkuboev, and Vokhidov all having risen tremendously in the past decade. Perhaps they’re the only serious rival to India’s upcoming dominance.
But lurking not far behind is Kazakhstan, whose women’s team (missing GM Zhansaya Abdumalik) already achieved silver this time around, and is certainly looking ambitiously to the future. While the Open team is not yet a contender, they’ve got some young talent, and I learned that (lots) of money is being invested into developing Kazakh chess, as well as in not-too-distant nations like Sri Lanka.
It’s only a matter of time before we’ve got another chess superpower on our hands. But speaking of chess superpowers…
The U.S. Team doesn’t have many fans
It’s clear that a large part of the chess world doesn’t have much sympathy for the U.S. open team. Which is quite sad, but many folks seem to have an issue with high-level player transfers. My own thoughts on the topic are mixed — it sucks for homegrown talent to be denied a spot on their national team, but at the same time I think players should have a right to move and switch federations. It should also be noted that the U.S. is far from the only team with transferred players. I don’t have the solution.
Regarding the fan base, I did find it a bit strange that while both India and Uzbekistan had a dedicated media team, there didn’t seem to be a single person on-site reporting for US Chess, for example. Which was a bit of a shame as both U.S. teams ended up rather successful! Meanwhile you had Chessbase India producing ‘work of art’ content throughout the event:
Every team has drama
Olympiad spots are hard to come by, and it can get very competitive when it comes to team selection — everyone wants to represent their country! For many players this is their only chance in two years to showcase their skill and compete on an international stage. It’s also a rare opportunity to earn norms.
I don’t think I heard of a single team without any issues under the surface. Don’t have a huge point here, just food for thought! Things happen during the Olympiad too. Players get sick, or suddenly fall out-of-form, and it can be very difficult (and even political) to decide who to play. For instance, here’s one I just saw on Facebook, from Azeri IM Gulnar Mammadova:
Chess is hard, chess photography is harder
It is surprisingly quite difficult to catch players, with good posture, looking at the board/opponent. And then to take a nice photo, all in focus and everything. David Llada was right—25 minutes is nothing! Especially when there’s hundreds of interesting players to capture. Total newfound respect for chess photographers—they must spend hours and hours editing photos. It’s not easy!
There are two sides of the chess world—the chess side, and the politics side
Along with the Olympiad, there comes the General Assembly, aka the Superbowl of FIDE. It’s understandable why they hold them side by side, delegates from every nation come to the Olympiad and otherwise it’d be impossible to get everyone in the same room. But I also can’t help but feel that FIDE uses the Olympiad as a distraction — for instance the GA was held across town in Budapest, far away from the playing venue. So one could not simply cover both events while they were happening, and I imagine most would prefer to follow the games in critical rounds vs. trying to understand the various elections and votes taking place.
It’s a strange divide, there’s the mainstream chess media and fans, who seem mostly concerned with growing interest in the game, and who the top players are, and then there’s the deep state of the chess world — mostly concerned with money and power. And I feel they’re all too happy when people focus on the chess, and ignore the politics!
Independent journalism is rare in chess
One of the most common questions I got all week was — “who are you covering the event for?”
I had a surprisingly hard time explaining that I was just taking photos and videos for…the general chess public! Like, chess twitter! Hoping to give people a taste of what the Olympiad was like. But it got me thinking. Generally speaking, it would be very hard to travel to Budapest on your own dime to cover the event. Here I just happened to be in Europe, so for me it was a financially sensible stopover.
For most others, I can see how chess journalism would be a thankless task. I think the chess world has some great journalists, but they mostly work for chess companies and by definition can’t write independently. It’s a tough problem, but with platforms like Substack and Patreon, perhaps we’re not that far off from a crowdfunded chess news source. (Not me though—I’m not a journalist, plus I’ve got a GM journey to focus on!)
The Bermuda Party probably used to be different
I thought it would be like this cool underground thing but it turned out to be an officially sanctioned FIDE social gathering, more for getting a chance to catch up with folks rather than a crazy party. It was still very fun though! After-party was chill too 😛.
Chess is a sport
It’s very clear — it takes skill, determination, energy, and focus to succeed. And for teams, you definitely need spirit. The Olympiad was intense, dude. All the captains eyeing each other. All the drama. The dreams and hopes of every team and player getting decided in just 11 days. Certainly felt like a sport to me!
ChessDojo is chess famous
I was shocked by the number of times I was approached in Budapest, not just by fans, but by actual players…from the Olympiad! Turns out Dojo has some high-rated fans from all over the world — I met folks from Mauritius, St. Lucia, Cape Verde, and lots of other places I didn’t know would be following our stuff! Was quite humbling and motivating to keep making good content :)
Budapest is super underrated
Oh man, I had no idea! Beautiful buildings, lots of sights, many great restaurants, affordable, and super walkable! Highly recommended.
Tashkent 2026 is going to be lit
I’m already looking forward to the 2026 Tashkent Olympiad. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to go, but I know it’ll be thrilling to follow!
All in all, visiting the 2024 Budapest Olympiad was quite an unforgettable experience, and I hope this recap gave a sense of what it was like. If you have the chance to see an Olympiad in person one day, I would strongly urge you to do so. Now I’ve got to get back to training!
Thanks for reading :)
Best Olympiad article I've read so far!
Nice write up of your experience at the event. Thanks