NEW DELHI: A full year after getting its 85 grandmaster, India got its 86th GM after 19-year-old Srihari LR got the coveted title when he played against GM Iniyan Paneerselvam at the Asian Individual Men’s Chess Championship which is going on right now at Al-Ain. Before Srihari, India’s last grandmaster was Shyaamnikhil P, who earned the top title in the sport on 12th May, 2024.
Srihari, who unsurprisingly hails from the state of Tamil Nadu, is coached by grandmaster Shyam Sundar at the academy called Chess Thulir. Shyam Sundar has also coached the likes of Pranav V.
“Congratulations L.R.Srihari for becoming the latest GM after securing the final GM norm here in the Asian open, Al Ain. It took nearly a year to get the final norm. Glad it happened now and time to focus on the next bigger goal!
Coming into the Asian Individual Men’s Chess Championship, Srihari had earned his two grandmaster norms — the first coming at the Qatar Masters in 2023, while the second one came at the Chennai GM Open event in 2024. He had also crossed the 2500 rating threshold in the published ratings last year itself in August 2024. All Srihari needed was to play the game against Iniyan Paneerselvam at Al-Ain for him to secure his third norm that confirms his ascendency to the GM title.
At Al-Ain, Srihari has gone unbeaten in eight games while his ninth game against Iniyan is still going on. Remarkably, eight of his games at the event have come against grandmasters. He has beaten Indian grandmasters Abhijeet Gupta and Pranav V while holding other GMs like AR Saleh Salem (from UAE), China’s Xu Xiangyu, Pranav Anand, Aleksey Grebnev (representing FIDE) and Pranesh M to draws.
Agencies