Aravindh Chithambaram, a special Indian talent
The 2013 Chennai Grandmaster Open was held in celebration of the Anand-Carlsen
FIDE World Championship Match. It was sensationally won by 14-year-old FM
Aravindh Chithambaram of Chennai. An unassuming boy, Aravindh won the tournament
ahead of all the GM's and IM's and also made his maiden GM and IM norms,
with a performance rating of 2728, which dwarfs his current rating of 2335.
It seems we have a new prodigy to track!

Here are the top final standings of the Chennai Open:
Read
our report by WGM Soumya Swaminathan and Michael von Keitz

This
report appeared in the Times of India in November...

... and this
one on the home page of the Asian Chess Federation

Aravindh has a refreshingly relaxed attitude
during the game. Many of his older opponents had a complaint: "How do we
take him seriously? He practices his cricket bowling technique during the
game!"

Aravindh was the winner of the U14 open group
at the Asian
Youth Championship 2013

Above we see Garry Kasparov with the winners of the 2012 World Youth Championship
in Maribor, Slovenia. In the category U14 open FM Kayden Troff (left) won
gold after staging a fantastic comeback in which he spent much of the event
ranked tenth or so, until the final round, where a full point behind the
sole leader FM Aravindh Chithambaram (middle), he beat him and secured gold
on tiebreak. The Indian came in second and took silver. Canadian IM Richard
Wang won the bronze medal.

Aravindh learnt chess from his maternal grandfather when he was seven.
“He would always try to find ways to get out of the house and playing
cricket with other boys,” says his mother Deivanai. “So my father
introduced him to chess to try and keep him still in one position.”
Three games by Aravindh
The three games above were sent to us by Aravindh, with his brief annotations.
Aravindh lost his father when he was three years old, and his mother struggles
to manage between his career and running the family. The chess prodigy comes
from a very poor background and desperately in need of financial support
to play in international tournaments abroad.

Aravindh does not prepare for his opponents during chess tournaments, he
prefers to play on his own skills and knowledge. "He is extremely quick
at calculations, and just like Carlsen he relies heavily on his endgame
skills to win games,” says GM R.B. Ramesh, who coaches Aravindh. "He
is excellent in calculation and good in the endgame as well. He has the
capacity and his current form indicates he can become a grandmaster in three
to six months, if given the opportunity to play in European tournaments."

Here your chance to contribute to Aravindh's chess career: Indiegogo, the
international crowd funding site based in San Francisco, California, is
raising money to fund travel and other expenses for Aravindh necessary to
put him on a fast-track to world recognition in chess. The funding goal
is $8,000, of which $1,890 have been achieved since December 14, 2013. The
closing date is January 31 2014. Visit this
Indiegogo page if you want to know more or are willing to contribute.
What is the money for? GM Ramesh has identified three potential chess tournaments
which Aravindh could attend in the next six months. These are in Iceland,
Germany and Thailand. Participation in these matches would involve international
flights and over 30 days of stay abroad. This means we would have to buy
flight tickets, make boarding and lodging arrangements, have money for local
travel expenses and advanced training material. We also need to take extra
care in making these arrangements given the fact Aravindh is not an adult.
The airfares and other travel expenses would come to over $7,000. Campaign
costs, match fees etc. would bring the total to about $8,000.
ChessBase is providing Aravindh with the basic software he needs for
his chess career: ChessBase 12, Fritz 14 and Mega Database 2014. And
we have a deal with the lad: the above is a reward for his first GM norm.
For every further norm he can pick three titles from our ChessBase
shop – anything he wants or thinks will help him in his studies.

Chess Gurukul was established
in 2008 at Chennai, India, under grandmaster RB Ramesh's support and guidance,
with the vision of producing quality chess champions. The organisation doesn't
just produce champions, but moulds hard-working, ambitious, responsible
and ultimately self-reliant human beings. It's been a short period of time
since its inception, but Chess Gurukul has been able to produce a fair number
of International and grandmasters.

Academy members with trainer GM R.B. Ramesh
at the World Youth Championship 2013 in Al Ain

Work and study – a typical day at the
chess school

A group of sucessful students of Chess Gurukul