Pendyala Harikrishna: A rising force in Indian chess

P Harikrishna is currently India’s number 2

“The greatest trick the devil ever played, was convincing the world he didn’t exist”. This quote from the movie The Usual Suspects, seems to fit perfectly for India’s number 2 Grandmaster. Pendyala Harikrishna has been living in the shadows of 5-time world champion Vishwanathan Anand, for a long time now. Few in the world of chess have observed his silent but meteoric rise in the game. His rapid growth in chess in the past one year has propelled him to number 20 in the World. It’s only a matter of time before the youngster breaks into the Top 15. Harikrishna currently has a rating of 2737, and he will be hoping to break through the tough-2800 barrier soon enough. Harikrishna became India’s youngest grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months in 2001, before that record was subsequently broken by Parimarjan Negi, who earned the Grandmaster tag at the age of only 13. He won the World Junior Chess Championships at the age of 18 and the Asian Chess Championships as recent as 2011. The 29-year old is also one of the only Indian players to feature in the Chess Bundesliga, which is unarguably the strongest team Chess League in the world, playing for the club Solvay since 2007. His constant run-ins with the world’s top grandmasters in different tournaments has significantly improved his game by many folds. Harikrishna’s best moment came in the Group A of the strong-Tata Steel Chess tournament in 2013, where he finished a respectable 7th. In the same year, he won another strong tournament, the Masters section of the Biel Chess tournament, beating many other top players.Harikrishna recently added another feather to his cap by winning the PokerStars Isle of Man International Chess tournament, on Sunday. The Andhra-Grandmaster just needed a draw over English GM Nigel Short, to bag the title. The positive thing for Harikrishna in the tournament was that on the course of victory, he remained undefeated throughout, drawing just a couple of matches. The manner in which the World number 20 is currently playing shows his exemplary attitude towards the game and his ever-improving game. At this rate, Harikrishna is ready to challenge the top-10 in the world and will look to emulate Vishwanathan Anand’s glorious career, apart from making a name on his own. India’s future in Chess is certainly looking bright and Harikrishna will be the inspiration for many young chess prodigies in the country, besides former World champion Vishwanathan Anand.