KOLKATA: An thought floated moderately casually has ended in the basis of an academy this is appearing promise of constructing India the sector’s subsequent chess superpower. Sandeep Singhal, co-founder of WestBridge Capital Advisors, a mission capital company based totally out of Bengaluru, requested Viswanathan Anand whether or not they are able to do one thing in combination in chess after the five-time international champion used to be on his approach out after a lecture consultation at his administrative center in 2019. Anand confident he would get again.
“Obviously I had some ideas to work on. I grew up with stories of the Botvinnik Chess Academy (where top Soviet players used to train) and saw the Olympic Gold Quest where the foundation takes care of the backend activities of the players. So it was more of a combination of a lot of things that led to the birth of WestBridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA) in December 2020 with the first lecture taking place in January 2021,” Anand mentioned.
“Our idea was to have a proper ecosystem in place for the growth of the players,” Singhal added.
The first choice used to be about settling on gamers and Anand mentioned “We decided on those who are very young and very strong.” Accordingly, the adventure started with the brother-sister duo of Praggnanandhaa and Rameshbabu Vaishali at the side of D Gukesh, Nihal Sarin and Raunak Sadhwani, “We got Leon (Mendonca) on board in December after he became a Grandmaster during the lockdown period. Later on, Arjun (Erigaisi) joined while Savitha Shri is the latest entrant,” Anand said.
As it happened during the Covid time, the classes were held online around thrice a week with coaches Boris GelfandGrzegorz Gajewski, Artur Yusupov and Sandipan Chanda, And results started showing with almost all of the players recording a huge rise in rating points.
Anand himself is deeply involved mainly in the planning part. “I keep in touch with the coaches and get monthly feedback from them along with looking after the training schedules. But personally I share my experiences with them,” Anand mentioned.
The kids too are discovering the adventure thrilling. “The classes are very motivating and also fun. I find those enjoyable,” this year’s Arjuna Award winners Prague state. “All the coaches are very helpful and the way they support you in analyzing your mistakes helps a lot,” Arjun, who made fast strides after becoming a member of WACA, mentioned.
Youngest of them Savitha has already gelled smartly along with her classmates. “I learned a lot from the way they all analyze positions,” she mentioned. “The positions we mostly solve and the classes are always very challenging and interesting,” Gukesh identified.
Looking forward, India’s first GM mentioned “at the beginning we had a rough idea of having a couple of Indian players in the world’s top 10 and we are inching closer to that.” It’s a adventure that has simply begun, however started smartly.
“Obviously I had some ideas to work on. I grew up with stories of the Botvinnik Chess Academy (where top Soviet players used to train) and saw the Olympic Gold Quest where the foundation takes care of the backend activities of the players. So it was more of a combination of a lot of things that led to the birth of WestBridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA) in December 2020 with the first lecture taking place in January 2021,” Anand mentioned.
“Our idea was to have a proper ecosystem in place for the growth of the players,” Singhal added.
The first choice used to be about settling on gamers and Anand mentioned “We decided on those who are very young and very strong.” Accordingly, the adventure started with the brother-sister duo of Praggnanandhaa and Rameshbabu Vaishali at the side of D Gukesh, Nihal Sarin and Raunak Sadhwani, “We got Leon (Mendonca) on board in December after he became a Grandmaster during the lockdown period. Later on, Arjun (Erigaisi) joined while Savitha Shri is the latest entrant,” Anand said.
As it happened during the Covid time, the classes were held online around thrice a week with coaches Boris GelfandGrzegorz Gajewski, Artur Yusupov and Sandipan Chanda, And results started showing with almost all of the players recording a huge rise in rating points.
Anand himself is deeply involved mainly in the planning part. “I keep in touch with the coaches and get monthly feedback from them along with looking after the training schedules. But personally I share my experiences with them,” Anand mentioned.
The kids too are discovering the adventure thrilling. “The classes are very motivating and also fun. I find those enjoyable,” this year’s Arjuna Award winners Prague state. “All the coaches are very helpful and the way they support you in analyzing your mistakes helps a lot,” Arjun, who made fast strides after becoming a member of WACA, mentioned.
Youngest of them Savitha has already gelled smartly along with her classmates. “I learned a lot from the way they all analyze positions,” she mentioned. “The positions we mostly solve and the classes are always very challenging and interesting,” Gukesh identified.
Looking forward, India’s first GM mentioned “at the beginning we had a rough idea of having a couple of Indian players in the world’s top 10 and we are inching closer to that.” It’s a adventure that has simply begun, however started smartly.