New Delhi: It has been a week of double delight for India’s great professor Nihal Sareen. First, his qualification for the Esports Chess World Cup is official. Soon after, the 21-year-old became the first Indian to earn a direct qualifying invitation to the main event of the inaugural Esports Nations Cup (ENC) 2026.While Nihal and his S8UL teammate Aravind Chitambaram have successfully qualified for the upcoming chess main event of the Esports World Cup (EWC) 2026, Nihal stands alone as India’s first direct invitee to the ENC Championship held in the country, where he will represent Team India Esports.
He earned his place through his outstanding performance in the official Chess Champions Tour (CCT) 2025-2026.
Why did Nihal get ENC invitation over Aravind?
Looking at the CCT leaderboard, a big point of confusion arises that Aravindh Chithambaram holds 1,017 points compared to Nihal’s 139 points.
However, Aravind missed the direct ENC invitation.
The answer lies in where those points are earned during the eligibility period (September 2, 2025 – May 26, 2026). To ensure players who directly qualify for the Esports World Cup remain at the top of the table, 1,000 points are manually added to their CCT ranking.However, the ENC selection criteria strictly evaluated individual performance in specific online qualifying events.
The majority of Aravind’s points came from his offline win at DreamHack Atlanta, an event that ENC did not take into account when selecting the live invitees.A similar situation happened to 2026 Candidates Program participant Andrey Isipenko, who also finished in the top four at the DreamHack Atlanta event. Despite amassing more overall CCT points, his points mostly came from offline qualifiers. As a result, Russia’s direct invitation was handed over to Ian Nepomniatchi.
Nihal, on the other hand, has brilliantly navigated the online CCT circuit. His strong campaign spanned the 2025 Speed Chess Championship (SCC), the 2026 Chess.com Open (CCO), and the Tuesday Grand Prix Championship (TTGP).After missing out on direct CCO qualifying by one point, he earned a crucial 100 points on the leaderboard, adding to his tally with consistent performances in the TTGP Autumn, Winter and Spring divisions.
After receiving 139 points, he reached the top six in the official ENC chess rankings.
Will Nihal Sareen be the only Indian in ENC?
ENC 2026 features a rigorous format designed to maximize global representation. Direct Invitations are limited to one player per country or territory, and are awarded to the person highest ranked on the leaderboard.Each country’s overall representation is limited to two players in the finals. Since Nihal got the direct invitation, another Indian player can still qualify through the regional competition.Apart from the 64 direct invitees, which include world-class masters such as Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Hikaru Nakamura (USA) and Alireza Firouzja (France), 61 players will qualify through regional qualifiers run by Chess.com. The regional qualifiers for India are scheduled to take place from June 6-7 and June 13-14, 2026. The final three spots will be filled via wildcards.The inaugural edition of the Main Event will take place from November 2 to 8, 2026, and will feature 128 players vying for a prize pool of US$600,000 (around INR 5.7 Crores).Speaking about the motivation for including chess in ENC during an exclusive interaction with TimesofIndia.com, Fabian Scheuermann, Chief Gaming Officer at the Esports Foundation, said: “Platforms like Chess.com and Twitch, along with creators and a new generation of grandmasters, have brought chess into the same digital environment as eSports. Many professional and creative players in other games play chess regularly, creating a shared culture and familiarity that allows the audience to engage with it instinctively.
“Sherman also admitted that the use of direct classification, regional qualifiers and wildcards was intentional, adding: “We have been very conscious of building a system that reflects performance and opportunity. Half the field is made up entirely of players qualified through the CCT rankings, which are limited to one player per country, to ensure equal representation and the presence of many of the world’s best chess players.“When you put the three together, you get a field that is elite and globally representative.”