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The National Team Championships is one of the most important events in the Indian calendar. No wonder, so many big names were present in Goa. These pictures will not only acquaint you with some of the champions of Indian chess but also with the arbiters, organizers: the main reason why chess in India is flourishing, the rising stars of the nation, and also one person who is sure to motivate each and every person who is reading this.
WGM Soumya Swaminathan has been the National Junior as well as Women’s champion on numerous occasions. But, definitely her biggest achievement is becoming the World Junior Girls Champion in 2009, Argentina. She won the best player prize on the first board in the tournament.
The most eligible bachelor, but not for long! Soon GM Deepan Chakravarthy is to tie the knot
WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy (left) and IM Vijayalakshmi (right) have many national titles to their name but they have something else in common: both of them are married to grandmasters! Aarthie’s husband GM R. B. Ramesh is one of the best coaches in India and was also the official commentator of the Anand-Carlsen match that was held in Chennai 2013. Vijayalakshmi is married to...
... GM Sriram Jha. Together they are the strongest chess couple in India: Elo average 2365!
Meenakshi Subbaraman, with her best player trophy on fifth board
IM Tania Sachdev, the superstar of Indian chess. For 0.001% of the readers who do not know her, Tania is one of the most popular players of the country and recently was hosting the prestigious Gibraltar Chess Festival. Apart from being an excellent player, Tania is a wonderful tutor as you can witness first hand by having a look at her two instructive ChessBase DVDs:
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No time to waste! The speed king of India, GM R. R. Laxman. The Chennai player has slowed down a little nowadays, but earlier he used to win his games without even thinking! [Picture by Rajesh Nattakom]
In the past few years the number of GMs in India has been constantly on the rise. That trend won’t really stop because there are many players in the country who have already made their required three GM norms. They only need to reach 2500 to achieve the coveted title. Here are some of them:
M. S. Thejkumar (2438) is a positional genius. His technique of converting
better positions is simply flawless. No wonder people call him the Indian Smyslov.
In 2005, Srinath Narayanan won the Under-12 World Championships along with Sanan Sjugirov, Ter Sahakyan Samvel and Wesley So. Today the other three are extremely strong GMs with one of them boasting an Elo of 2788! As for Srinath, the road to the top has not been easy. But one cannot deny the extreme amount of talent he possesses. He is currently rated 2456, but I won’t be surprised if he crosses 2550 in a year!
It is said that when Swapnil Dhopade (2438) was young he read a book on the best games of Anatoly Karpov. Ever since he has been beating his opponents in the style of a boa constrictor!
P. Karthikeyan (2442) is an extremely versatile player. One day you go to his board and you see pieces flying in all directions with mind boggling complications, and on the next day you see him playing a calm, steady and rock solid positional game! It’s this flexibility which makes him a dangerous opponent to face.
And now for the future of Indian chess: the boy whose hands can hardly reach across the chess board: Leon Luke Mendonca (1724), the nine-year-old boy who won the bronze medal at the Under-8 World Youth Chess Championship, 2014.
Out of the five board prizes, three went to the eventual winners PSPB. However, the remaining two were won by two players from the same team: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).
Hemal Thanki has a rating of just 2061, but he was on fire as he scored
8.0/8, gaining 57 Elo points and was the best player on the third board
Ram S. Krishnan (2252), best player on the second board with 8.5/9
Swathi Ghate of LIC didn’t have a very strong team at her disposal, but she did her best, scoring 6.0/7. Swathi, who now resides from Pune, was born and brought up in the chess mecca of Maharashtra called Sangli. An extremely hard working player, she is feared by many as a vicious attacker.
If you come to a strong chess tournament in India, you are sure to meet
FA Anand Babu. He makes sure all the games are broadcasted live on the Internet.
Being the chief arbiter of a team event is not at all an easy task. You have to keep a watch on the board order of every team in every round. But International Arbiter M. Ephrame did a fantastic job and that too with a smile on his face!
On the right above you can see Shailesh Nerlikar, one of my heroes, not only in chess but in life. Shailesh suffers from a very rare disorder in which his bones have shrunk in size. As a result of that he cannot stand or sit. He was just like any other kid till the age of four. But a wrong prescription and calcium overdose by a doctor led him to his current condition. As a result, Shailesh has to see the chess board from a very unusual angle. But even with such a debilitating illness, Shailesh tries to be independent and makes the initial moves of the game with the help of a stick.
Shailesh’s mother makes sure that his son’s passion for chess continues by taking him to various tournaments all over India. Shailesh is my very good friend and whenever I ask him about his aims he has always replies: “I will never settle for anything less than a GM title!” In chess Shailesh is rated just 1568 but in the art of living he is already a grandmaster.
In 1980s his talent was compared to that Vishy Anand. Later other priorities
took over and IM Anup Deshmukh couldn’t fully exploit his gift for the game.
This picture shows Vishy Anand playing against Anup Deshmukh at the Goodricke Open in 1992. At that point there was already quite a gap between the two players, as Vishy was rated 2670 and Anup was 2275. Yet, the talented player from Nagpur gave Anand a very tough fight and even held the advantage in the endgame before eventually losing.
President of Commonwealth Chess, CEO of All India Chess Federation and the master mind behind the huge Parsvanath Chess Festival in Delhi that happens every year in January, Bharat Singh Chauhan [picture by Rajesh Nattakom].
It’s always great news for the sport when the present office bearers have been
strong players in the past. AICF Secretary Hariharan Venkatachalam (2116)
The chief organizer of Mumbai Mayor’s Cup, the highest prize money tournament in India, Ravindra Dongre. He has a rating of 2103 must be commended for not losing any rating points by scoring 4.0/9.
“I did not see that coming!” The 1999 commonwealth champion
IM Atanu Lahiri (2308) didn’t have a great event, losing nearly 30 Elo points
During the National Team Championships in Goa chess was trending everywhere!
The pictures in this report were taken by Amruta Mokal, who
played in the Open section and scored 3.5/5, gaining 22 Elo points.
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