Bengaluru: Roughly a decade in the past, a teenage Aravindh Chithambaram was considered essentially the most promising younger Indian chess participant on the horizon. Because the years handed, youthful, stronger Indian gamers emerged, and little was heard of Aravindh.
Aravindh gained the Prague Masters with an undefeated 6/9 rating. (Petr Vrabec / Prague Chess Competition)
At 25, Aravindh is making an attempt to make up for misplaced time. On Friday, he gained the Prague Masters with an undefeated 6/9 rating, three wins and 6 attracts in a troublesome discipline. It was solely his second classical super-tournament (after Chennai Grand Masters final yr) and he has gained each.
Going into Friday’s ultimate spherical, it was between Aravindh and fellow Indian and academy mate, R Praggnanandhaa. Wei Yi had an outdoor likelihood to spoil the all-Indian occasion and make it to the tiebreaks, however that by no means occurred. Giri dismantled Praggnanandhaa and all Aravindh wanted was a draw towards 16-year-old Turkish prodigy Ediz Gurel to win the title. Aravindh surpassed Viswanathan Anand on the stay rankings and is now positioned at No 14 with Elo 2743, the fourth-highest ranked Indian after Gukesh D, Arjun Erigaisi and Praggnanandhaa.
Coach RB Ramesh usually refers to Aravindh as essentially the most proficient participant he’s ever coached. A common participant from a younger age, Aravindh misplaced his father when he was three and his mom struggled to fund her son’s chess dream.
In 2014, a crowd-funding initiative managed to boost ₹9 lakhs so Aravindh might journey to tournaments and earn his GM title. Whereas a wave of recent Indian prodigies, like Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh, took centrestage, Aravindh struggled to ship on his promise and battled inside demons and confidence points for some time. His current outcomes counsel he’s discovered a approach out of the rut and he’s lastly realising the potential he has all the time proven.
Notably spectacular within the event was Aravindh’s win with the Black items over Dutch GM Anish Giri in Spherical 7. Giri had drawn six of his earlier video games and arrived searching for a battle. The Indian discovered a fantastic knight sacrifice (24…Ng5!!) and adopted it up with 25…d4!!, which cleared the diagonal for his bishop and made white’s f4 pawn appear weak.
“I was doing this mind trick while playing Aravindh, because I was in a must-win situation,” Giri informed Chessbase India in the course of the stay broadcast, “I looked at him and told myself ‘okay I’ve seen you for many years, you’ve been Elo 2650 for many years and that’s how I’m going to treat you, like the old Aravindh’. That’s how I tried to pump myself up. I got completely crushed. Next time I’ll know better.”