Indian Chess Teen G Akash Breaks Vishy Anand National Chess Title Record

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

Chess statisticians and chess historians might like this chess trivia particularly. We have just received an interesting report by Chess Magazine Black & White. The report is about an Indian chess teen actually scraping off a few months from World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand's Indian national chess title record.

Vidit, Akash and Arun on the podium. others from left: IM Atanu Lahiri, Sec. WB Ad Hoc Committee, R. Anantharam Chief Arbiter, PK Bannerjee former foot ball olympian, Hon. Commerce Minister Partho Chatterjee, DV Sundar, FIDE Vice President, GM Dibyendu Barua, Ambar Singh from TATA.

The report states: Sixteen-year-old untitled G Akash (born October 1) has won the National Premier Chess Championship in India and is now the country's youngest-ever national chess champion. He earned the title on Sunday scoring 9 points in 13 rounds at the age of 16 years and 14 days!

But, of course, in Anand's case, the world chess champion was already an IM by the age of 15 in 1984. He won that title twice more and became India's first Grandmaster at the age of 18. 

World Chess Champion GM Viswanathan Anand had won the national chess title at a few months older than G Akash. The teenager also gets an entry into the World Cup as he picks up an IM title and a GM norm. As India is considered as a separate Zone for the world chess championship qualification matches, Akash will get a direct entry to the World Cup to be held in Tromse, Norway next year. 

There was a 3-way tie for the second spot with IM Vidit Gujrathi, GM S Arun Prasad and GM Deep Sengupta all finishing on 8.5 points. But Vidit finished second for having a better 'buchholzs' score. Arun Prasad was placed third while Deep had to be content with the 4th position.

"When I came here, I was only thinking of getting an IM norm, but now I have to set new goals," said Akash after the final round. "I want to dedicate this title to my parents and my coach, Grandmaster RB Ramesh, who has worked hard on my game," he added. A student of computer science at Jawahar Higher Secondary School in Chennai, he gets time to play chess for only two hours daily.

But, aided by a bit of luck, things started turning in his favour from 11th round as M R Venkatesh, who led the pack for four rounds, forfeited his match to the youngster for arriving three minutes late because of traffic.

We find India a very interesting chess country and look forward to new talent coming from there in the footsteps of strong world players like Vishy Anand and Koneru Humpy.

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