Prodigy Nihal Sarin earns India’s 53rd Grandmaster title with a draw at Abu Dhabi Masters Chess
India’s latest chess prodigy, Nihal Sarin has become India’s 53rd Grandmaster after a draw against Uzbekistan’s Temur Kuybokarov in the eighth round of the Abu Dhabi Masters Chess. Nihal is the third Grandmaster from Kerala after GN Gopal and SL Narayanan and currently has an ELO rating of 2556.
The Indian chess players had a good outing this week as, Vaishali R, sister of the world’s second-youngest Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa, became the latest Woman Grandmaster (WGM) from India. On the other hand, Nihal came close to becoming a Grandmaster on Monday after settling for a draw with Romanian Grandmaster Constantin Lupulescu in the seventh round.
The 14-year-old’s draw in 21 moves took the tally to 5.5 points which (5.5/9) was enough for a GM norm (considering 2545 as the average rating of opponents). As a result, he would just need Hungarian GM Richard Rapport (ELO rating 2719) to turn up in the ninth and last round to make it official (53rd GM from India) even if he loses the match.
However, chess player SL Narayanan tweeted that he did not expect Nihal to achieve such an honorable post as he had played against the 14-year-old before (in 2016) and did not notice anything special extraordinary apart from the kid’s enthusiasm.
I first met @NihalSarin in January 2016. I won comfortably, and it was hard to notice anything special at that time. Neither did a training session two months later show me anything extraordinary, other than a very enthusiastic little kid (1/5).
— Srinath Narayanan (@nsrinath69) August 14, 2018
On the other hand, a draw against Chinese Grandmaster Wang Hao kept Aravindh Chithambaram in contention for the podium finish with six points after eight rounds, along with Debashis Das. Ukraine’s Anton Korobov, with seven points, topped the table with a round to go.