Kramnik, Gelfand to train 14 budding chess players

It is going to be a double Pongal festival for 14 Indian young and upcoming chess players -- 12 boys and two girls between January 8-18, next year for they will be trained by two chess legends former world chess champion Grand Master (GM) Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik and GM Boris Gelfand, who had unsuccessfully challenged former world champion V Anand in the world title match in 2012.

Chennai, the cradle of Indian chess, will see the two chess players training the young chess talents in moving horses, elephants and other pieces on their chess boards when Tamil Nadu will be hosting `jallikattu' -- the bull taming sport as part of Pongal festivities.

"Our vision and mission is to build India as a powerful chess playing nation. Five times World Champion Viswanathan Anand created waves of popularity for chess in India and we would like to take this to the next logical step," S Kailasanathan, Managing Director, Microsense Group, which is sponsoring the coaching camp, was quoted as saying in a statement issued on Monday.

Interestingly, Kailasanathan was the Tamil Nadu chess champion in 1972 and has also played for West Bengal and Delhi in his younger days.

This will be the second coaching camp by Kramnik for the young Indian chess players. The first camp, also sponsored by Microsense Group, was held in France in August 2019.

"The right coaching at the right time in a systematic manner is very important. The players have been selected out of a particular age group with existing ratings," Kailasanathan said.

According to him, coaching camps are being worked out for slightly older players and camps for the even younger talents covering a much larger group from all over India.

Looking forward to the camp, Gelfand said: "India has a unique generation of talents and aspiring to become the superpower of chess World."

He said some of these juniors have already achieved incredible success and others are about to follow them.

Speaking about the second camp, Kramnik said: "After the first camp which we held in France, I am glad that we are having the second camp once again. This time it is even more exciting because it will be held in Chennai."

Kramnik also thanked Kailasnathan for having the long-term vision and investing in the future of Indian chess.

The 14 players who will be trained by Kramnik and Gelfand have an average age of 13.

The players who will be attending the training camps are: R. Praggnanandhaa, D. Gukesh, Raunak Sadhwani, Prithu Gupta, P.Iniyan, Arjun Erigaisi, Leon Mendonca, Sreeshwan Maralakshikari, Aditya Mittal, Arjun Kalyan, Bharat Subramaniyam,  Raahil Mullick, Rakshitta Ravi and Vaishali.