Indian Chess Players

Indian Chess Players are constantly and consistently on the rise and doing quite well internationally as well. Several top-ranking players of the Chess world are Indians. Chess is one of the oldest sports in India and is played by the Indian people, quite extensively. The game has earned a lot of popularity in India since its inception and its popularity is still increasing day by day.

India has already produced several talented Chess players so far and the Indian Chess Players have already proved themselves in the international arena. They have performed extraordinary in many international and Indian Chess tournaments and showed their excellent skills on Chess board.

Indian Chess Players have made their mark in the international arena at various levels, be it in junior level or the senior level. India has the proud of producing World Champions in both the junior and senior levels and also in various age-wise competitions. India also has the credit of producing a large number of Grand Masters and International Masters in Chess.

Male Chess Players in India are constantly on the grow and doing quite well internationally as well. The male chess players of India have earned a lot of popularity in India along with the game Chess, since its inception and its popularity is still increasing day by day.

Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan Anand is an Indian chess Grandmaster and a former World Chess Champion. Viswanathan Anand became India`s first grandmaster in 1988. He held the FIDE World Chess Championship from 2000 to 2002. He has contributed in changing the entire scenario of chess in India. Anand is currently the World Chess Champion and he has brought a lot of glory to India by winning the World Championship in all the three formats of Chess. No Chess player in the world has achieved this feat so far.

Arjun Vishnuvardhan
Arjun Vishnuvardhan is an Indian chess player who became the young International Master in U.S.A. when he was merely 16 years of age. In 2006, at the age of 15, Vishnuvardhan became the National Game-60 Chess Champion of America by defeating the top International Master Edward Formanek, who is a mathematics professor in Pennsylvania University.

Mir Sultan Khan
Mir Sultan Khan was considered to have been the most substantial chess master from Asia during pre-independent India.

Krishnan Sasikiran
Krishnan Sasikiran is a chess player from India who has achieved the title of Grandmaster. He is ranked 2nd (after Viswanathan Anand) in India, ranked 6th in Asia and 56th in the world in FIDE rating as on September 2011.

Magesh Panchanathan
Magesh Panchanathan was born in the year 1983 in the Indian city of Madurai, Tamil Nadu. He developed an interest in the game after seeing his father and brother playing chess and distinguished himself at an early age. Magesh Panchanathan is a graduate student at the University of Texas, Dallas.

Parimarjan Negi
Parimarjan Negi is an Indian chess player and a reputed Grandmaster. Parimarjan Negi was born on 9th February 1993. He became the 2nd youngest Grandmaster on July 1st 2006 at the age of thirteen years, four months and twenty two days. Parimarjan Negi won his 3rd and final International Master norm in July 2005 at the Sort International Open Chess Tournament in Spain. He also won his 3rd and final Grandmaster norm in Russia at the Chelyabinsk Region Superfinal Championship in the year 2006. The current FIDE rating of Parimarjan Negi is 2641, of January 2011.

Srinath Narayanan
Srinath Narayanan is a former Indian chess prodigy who hails from Chennai. When he was merely 5 years old, he defeated his father in a chess game and thus his talent in chess was recognized. He was born in the year 1994.

Pendyala Harikrishna
Pendyala Harikrishna is an internationally recognised chess prodigy from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. In a career spanning from 1996, when he was just 10, to the present day, Harikrishna has played remarkably in several international and national tournaments.

Dibyendu Barua
Dibyendu Barua is regarded as the Second Indian to become a Grandmaster after Viswanathan Anand. Dibyendu Barua, a chessGrandmaster who hails from the city of Kolkata in the Indian state of West Bengal.

Sandipan Chanda
Sandipan Chanda is a chess Grandmaster hailing from the city of Kolkata, West Bengal. Sandipan became grandmaster in 2003. He played for India in the Chess Olympiads of 2004, 2006 and 2008. He was Viswanathan Anand`s second for the World Chess Championship 2013 match.

Sahaj Grover Sahaj Grover is a well known Indian chess player from Delhi who won the Under-10 World Chess Championship in July 2005. He is an International master of chess.

Abhijeet Gupta
Abhijeet Gupta is an Indian chess player with the title Grandmaster. He hails from Bhilwara in Rajasthan. He was born on October 16, 1989. Abhijeet has won many awards for India. He won 19 medals from various parts of the World in Asian and Commonwealth Chess Championships in Sub Junior, Junior and Senior Category. Abhijeet became National Junior (Under-19) Chess Champion at the age of 13 years in 2002. It is a record unsurpassed till 2011. His name was also included in the Limca Book of Records in 2001 as the permanent record holder.

Abhijit Kunte is a talented chess player from India who was born on 3rd March 1977 in Pune in the Indian state of Maharashtra. He received the title of a grandmaster. Many times he participated in Indian Chess Championship (1997, 2000) where he won two gold medals and four bronze medals (1999, 2001, 2003 and 2005). He also won the British Chess Championship (took 2nd, behind Krishnan Sasikiran, at Sangli 2000, and 3rd at Mumbai 2003, Nguyen Anh Dung won off contest).

Manuel Aaron
Manuel Aaron was the first Indian chess master to earn the title of International Master. From the 1960s to the 1980s, he played the predominant role in the field of chess in India.

Surya Shekhar Ganguly
Surya Shekhar Ganguly is a famous Indian chess Grandmaster born on 24th February in 1983. He is a chess prodigy from Kolkata in West Bengal. He started his chess training from an early age of 5 and achieved tremendous success at the National Junior and World Junior Levels when he was 8 years old. He too became one of the youngest players to beat a grandmaster at the age of 11.

Ridit Nimdia
Ridit Sunil Nimdia is one of the youngest Indian chess players and was born in the year 2004. He is from Mumbai from the Indian state of Maharashtra. He started playing competitive chess from a very young age and became the youngest ever chess player to receive his first official Elo ratings of 1283.

Hetul Shah
Hetul Shah is a young talent born in the year 1999. He is a gifted Indian chess player and at the age of nine he became the youngest person to defeat a grandmaster in chess at a standard (non-fast chess) time control when he defeated Nurlan Ibrayev of Kazakhstan on 11th January 2009 at the 7th Parsvnath International Open chess tournament in round one. Hetul was playing with Black and his Elo rating was 1817, almost 600 points below his opponents rating of 2407.

Moheschunder Bannerjee
Moheschunder Bannerjee was a solid chess player from West Bengal. He played the conventional chess in most of the tournaments.

Praveen Thipsay
Praveen Mahadeo Thipsay is an Indian grandmaster born on 12th August 1959. He is a popular figure in the Indian chess circuit and has won many Indian championships including 1982, 1984, 1985, 1989, 1992, 1993 and 1994 and played for India in the Chess Olympiads of 1982, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1994, 1998 and 2002.

Umakant Sharma
Umakant Sharma, was born in the year 1982, and is a controversial Indian chess player who was forbidden from taking part in competitive chess for ten years due to cheating.

Geetha Narayanan Gopal
Geetha Narayanan Gopal is a young chess player. He was born in the year 1989 and is a young chess grandmaster from Aluva, in the Indian state of Kerala. He started playing the game from a very young age, at the age of 10.

Chakkravarthy Deepan
Chakkravarthy Deepan is an Indian Chess Grandmaster.

Deep Sengupta
Deep Sengupta is a chess player from Jharkhand, who now resides in Kasba in Kolkata, West Bengal. Deep Sengupta is rated at 2540 Elo. He is India`s 22nd grandmaster. He started chess with the Chakradharpur Chess Academy, and won the World Youth Chess Championship (boys) in 2000.

Ramachandran Ramesh
Ramachandran Ramesh is an Indian chess grandmaster from Chennai who won the 2002 British Championship and 2007 Commonwealth Championship. He is married to WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy.

Sethuraman Panayappan Sethuraman
Sethuraman Panayappan Sethuraman is an Indian chess grandmaster. He achieved the three norms required for the grandmaster title with shared second place and a score of 8/10 points at the Parsvnath Open in New Delhi in 2009, third place and 6.5/9 score at the Paris International Championship in 2010, and winning the Voivoda Cup in Legnica with 7/9 in the same year.

Musunuri Lalith Babu
Musunuri Lalith Babu is hailing from Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh. He is an Indian chess player. At Hastings London 2012, he was awarded with the coveted title of Grand Master.

Female Chess Players in India includes Tania Sachdev, Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman, Dronavalli Harika, Soumya Swaminathan, Nadig Kruttika, Padmini Rout, Mary Ann Gomes, Swati Ghate, Aarthie Ramaswamy, Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi and many other players who are playing chess and honoured the country.

Tania Sachdev
Tania Sachdev is an Indian female chess player, who holds the titles of Woman Grandmaster and International Master. She was born on 20th August 1986. Tania Sachdev was inducted to the game by her mother Anju in conjure to harness her restlessness energy into something positive. Sachdev became the Eighth Indian Woman Grandmaster. When Tania was just eight, she won her first international title. Already she has won the World and Asian junior titles by the time. Tania Sachdev aims to achieve the International Master norm. She exceeded recently in the Asian Women`s Championship with 6.5 points out of 9 rounds. A Delhi literature student and Woman International Master, Tania Sachdev, accomplished her final woman grandmaster norm by scoring fifty percent in the First Saturday of the Grandmaster Tournament.

Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman
Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman is an Indian chess player of international repute. She is presently ranked 20th amongst women chess players in the world. But from India, she is the first Woman Grand Master (WGM). Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman has been a 5 time national champion throughout her career span. She has won more medals for India in the Chess Olympiads, than any other player. Subbaraman has even won almost all national age group titles, which include the senior title, for record time. The present FIDE rating of Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman is 2464. Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman is renowned for the high level of her game. She has also helped inflame interest in Women`s chess in India. The world champion Gary Kasparov is her favourite Chess player.

Dronavalli Harika
Dronavalli Harika is an upcoming talent among young Indian chess players. This tremendous talent in chess was born on 12th January 1991 in the Guntur District in Andhra Pradesh. She learned to play chess at tender age of seven. She holds three prestigious titles one being the title of Grandmaster and the other two are Woman Grandmaster and International Master respectively. With time she came to the limelight after registering her win in the Asian Games Under-10 Championships and Asian Games Under-12 Championships. In the year 2011 she won Asian Individual Women Chess Championship. She trains under NVS Raju and in July 2011 she achieved one of the rare feats by grabbing the Grandmaster title. And in doing so, she became the second Indian woman, after GM Koneru Kumpy, to receive such top honour.

Aarthie Ramaswamy
Aarthi Ramaswamy is a popular name in the chess circuit in India. Aarti Ramaswamy, an Indian Chess player, was born on 28th June 1981. She happens to be the Woman Grand Master (WGM) and is the national champion on 2003. Before that, in 1999, she won the under 18 girls championship that took place in Oropesa, Spain. Presently she is rated 2211.

Padmini Rout
Padmini Rout is an Indian chess player who holds the titles of International Master and Woman Grandmaster. She won the World under-14 girls` championship in 2008 and the Indian women`s championship twice (in 2014 and 2015).

Kruttika Nadig
Kruttika Nadig is a chess player from Maharashtra. Kruttika Nadig holds the title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM). Kruttika Nadig won the Indian national women`s championship in 2008. Kruttika Nadig competed in the Women`s World Chess Championship 2010; she was knocked out in the first round by compatriot Harika Dronavalli. She played for India in the Women`s World Team Chess Championship and Women`s Asian Team Chess Championship in 2009 and for Indian women`s team in the World Youth U16 Chess Olympiad in 2003.

Swaminathan Soumya
Soumya Swaminathan is a chess player holding the title of Woman Grandmaster from India. She won the World Junior Girls` Championship 2009 held in Puerto Madryn, Argentina edging out on tiebreak score Deysi Cori and Betul Cemre Yildiz.

Mary Ann Gomes
Mary Ann Gomes is an Indian chess player holding the FIDE title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM).In 2005 she won the Asian Under-16 Girls Championship in Namangan, Uzbekistan. She won the Asian Junior (Under-20) Girls Championship in 2006, 2007 and 2008. She also won three times the Women`s Indian Chess Championship in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Swati Ghate
Swati Ghate is an Indian chess player and a Woman Grandmaster. She is also a winner of the 2006 Indian Chess Championship.

Humpy Koneru
Humpy Koneru is hailing from Vijayawada. She is an Indian chess grandmaster.