Facing internet lag, speed chess gets break with Mumbai server

NIHAL SARIN HAS played tens of thousands of speed chess games online, won multiple speed chess tournaments, pocketed prize money worth lakhs and has shown he can match any player in the world, move for move.

- MAYANK

Yet, one persistent obstacle holds back the 20-year-old Grandmaster from Kerala: the internet network lag in India.

"If you think about it, let's say in a second, you can make like nine or 10 moves, which is essentially 0.1 seconds per move," said Sarin, a multiple-time Junior Speed Chess Champion.

"But the moment it takes even just 0.2 seconds, you can only make half of the moves all of a sudden. It does not sound like anything when you say 1 millisecond at first but it actually makes a huge difference effectively."

Sarin has played more than 51,000 speed and bullet games on chess.com, one of the most popular online gaming websites, alone. Two years ago, when he was barely 18, he secured second place in the chess.com Global Championship to take home $100,000, or nearly ₹82 lakh.

But being Nihal Sarin comes with its own challenges — especially when competing globally from India for reasons beyond his control. India generates over 2.1 million daily games on chess.com (10.5% of total traffic). However, players constantly grapple with network delays and lag issues.

In live chess games, every millisecond counts for competitive players battling for big prize money or sharpening their skills in practice. For a player like Sarin, the frustration levels sometimes reach a point that he even thinks of moving out of India temporarily. When asked if the thought ever occurred to him, Sarin says, "Oh yes, very much...as a temporary solution, definitely."