What’s the story
16-year-old Rameshbabu Vaishali did the nation proud by winning the gold medal in the Asian Continental Blitz Chess Championship in Chengdu, China, on Sunday. Prime Minister of Indian Narendra Modi congratulated Vaishali on her victory.
In case you did not know...
Daughter of A. Rameshbabu, Vaishali has been good at chess from an early age. Apart from winning a fair share of youth medals, she won the Indian National Women's 'B' championship in 2015.
Also, her brother R. Praggnanandhaa is a brilliant chess player and is the youngest ever International Master (IM). He won the coveted title aged only 11, defeating Axel Bachmann at the Isle of Man chess championships last year. Both Vaishali and Praggnanandhaa were so good at chess that they had won titles at almost every state and national event.
The heart of the matter
Vaishali clinched the women's title with eight points from nine rounds. She drew her final round game against Uurtsaikh Uuriintuya of Mongolia to finish just half-a-point ahead of Iran's Sarasdat Khademalsharieh.
Apart from Vaishali, other Indians to win a medal were Vidit Santhosh Gujrathi and Padmini Rout. Padmini, who currently has an ELO rating of 2203, won the bronze with seven points after a last round win over China’s Yuxin Song, while Vidit won his bronze in the classical format.
Tamil Nadu's Aravind Chithambaram finished fourth with a tally of seven points from six wins, two draws, and one loss. M R Lalith Babu finished seventh with 6.5 points while B Adhiban took up the 10th spot with 6 points. Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly also failed to win any medal, finishing 22nd. He was followed by Sandipan Chanda and S P Sethuraman in 24th and 25th spots respectively.
What’s next?
With the bronze, Gujrathi qualified for the Chess World Cup to be held in Georgia in September. Other Indian’s to have qualified for the 128-player single-elimination tournament are Viswanathan Anand, Pentala Harikrishna, S.P. Sethuraman and Deep Sengupta.
Author’s take
Winning the Blitz Championship is just the start. Vaishali is up there in the list of prodigies creating a colossal impact on world chess. The sibling duo has made it pretty clear that they intend to go a long way. Exciting times are surely ahead for the young chess master and Indian chess.
