'An Army To Shake Up The World Of Chess'

'It is not just D Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi.'
'There are another 20 players just behind them. Nobody imagined this was possible 5 years ago.'

At a time when India is celebrating the twin gold medals at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest -- Open and Women's -- as well as individual gold medals, two persons who laid the foundation for these achievements remain unsung.

Former Tamil Nadu chess champion S Kailasanathan and Vinoda Kailas had roped in chess legends to train several chess prodigies.

"It was a vision that has now become a reality. 5 to 6 years ago we supported some 30 young people, mostly less than 12 to 14 years of age," says Kailasanathan.

"We had a stated objective of getting our players into the top 20 and then the top 10 and then a shot at the world championship," Kailasanathan adds.

Not only has the above mission succeeded, much more has been achieved.

Today, young Grandmasters D Gukesh and R Praggnanandhaa are ranked 7th and 12th in the chess world respectively.

Gukesh will be vying for the world title a few weeks from now.

Reigning Champion Liren Ding from China and Gukesh will contest the FIDE World Chess Championship from November 20 to December 15 in Singapore.

Through his former company Microsense, Kailasanathan organised a coaching camp for upcoming chess talents -- Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, P Iniyan, Raunak Sadhwani and Leon Mendonca -- in France in 2019 under former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik.

A second camp was held in Chennai thereafter for 14 young chess players under Kramnik and GM Boris Gelfand.

"The idea was to create an army to shake up the world of chess. That's exactly what has happened. Training and coaching are only part of the components. We had to financially support these boys and girls for travel, for stay, for computers and software and so on. Even if one item was missed it would have meant failure," points out Kailasanathan.

"It's important to understand that it is not just Gukesh, (World No 4 GM) Arjun Erigaisi, Praggnanandhaa and (World No 24 GM) Vidit Gujrathi," Kailasanathan adds.

"There are another 20 players just behind them. Open your eyes. Nobody imagined this was possible 5 years ago. But our mission was fulfilled," he remarks.

According to Kailasanathan, the Microsense group supported Gukesh even before he became a GM -- both financially for his travel and hotel stays and his training and coaching. This was until about one year ago.

The Microsense group had supported about 30 young chess players.

"The idea was to make sure that a large number of Indian players enter the top echelons and not just one or two. This is what happened and the plan has been proved right. The entire world has woken up and noticed," says Kailasanathan.

Kailasanathan and Rajiv Talwar, former director at Microsense, continue their chess player supporting mission in their personal capacity.

"Right now three young GMs -- Aditya Mittal, Pranav Venkatesh, Bharath Subramaniam -- are undergoing training under Gelfand at my expense for the last six months maybe," Kailasanathan adds.

While Indian chess officialdom is silent about his contribution, Gelfand, who trained the young chess talents, in an e-mail to Kailasanathan, said: 'Dear Kailash, congratulations on the amazing victories of Indian teams! Your support and trust has helped these amazing juniors to grow into the best players in the World.'

With the success of the training camps, Kailasanathan and Talwar joined hands with the Pravaha Foundation headed by Vinoda Kailas and organised a camp for young women chess players in Budapest early this year.

The trainer? None other than the strongest woman player in the world and an idol for a large number of young women chess players -- Hungarian GM Judit Polgár.

The Pravaha Foundation sponsored seven women chess players including IMs Vantika Agrawal and Tania Sachdev who were part of the Olympiad Gold medal winning team.

"One intent for conducting the training earlier this year is to see if it can help enhance the performance of the team at the Olympiad and I am very happy and excited that the team won gold," says Vinoda Kailas.

"I am sure that Vantika's and Tania's experience spending time with Judit Polgár and learning from her must have made a tremendous impact," adds Vinoda.

International Master and Woman GM Vantika, 21, won Gold for individual performance playing on the fourth board at the Budapest Olympiad.

Vantika says it was a dream come true not only to meet Judit Polgár, but also train under her for two weeks.

"After that camp, my confidence levels went up and I played better attacking games. Most of my games at the Olympiad were complex," says Vantika.

"Judit suggested to maintain focus and keep calculating till the game ends and not to ease up towards the end. At the training sessions, we studied lots of chess positions and arrived at a solution. She showed lots of her games including one against (Viswanathan) Anand that she won," adds Vantika.

"It was really fun at the Judit camp. The training was for about 6 to 7 hours with a break after three hours. We didn't go back to our rooms or outside during the break, but continued to be present at the training venue," says Vantika.

Her confidence levels at the Budapest Olympiad, she says, rose as the rounds progressed.

"The assistant coaches worked hard. Suggesting the playing lines against the next day's opponents. In case we were not confident of certain lines, they would work at night and give us the file for us to go through the next morning," Vantika adds.

The Pravaha Foundation has launched 64 Squares -- a sponsorship programme for women's chess -- in collaboration with MGD1, India's top chess management agency.

Under this programme, the Pravaha Foundation has committed Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million) over a two year span for the comprehensive support of six exceptionally talented chess players: Savithashri Baskar, Shubhi Gupta, Vantika, Saparya Ghosh, Charvi Anilkumar (girls) and a boy A R Ilamparthi.

Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at venkatacharijagannathan@gmail.com

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com