Chess was invented in India in the sixth century CE. It had spread from Asia to the Middle East and Europe during the tenth century. Many regard the game chaturanga to be the precursor of modern chess because of the different piece abilities and the win condition being the capture of the most important piece called as king. Pentala Harikrishna – A Great Player of India is synonymous with the stalwarts of this game.
There have been various tournaments in Chess and players are given various ratings based on their performances.
A chess rating system is a system that is used to estimate the strength of a player, based on their performance versus other players.
Know More About Pentala Harikrishna – A Great Player of India
Pentala Harikrishna’s is synonymous with the stalwarts of this game. Pentala Harikrishna – A Great Player of India was born on the tenth of May in the year of 1986 in Guntur of Andhra Pradesh state.He started learning chess from the tender age of four from none other than his own grandfather named Ranga Rao, who was also his first chess coach..!
He became the youngest grandmaster from India after attaining the title in the year 2001. However presently this record is held by Gukesh D.
India’s Best Player
During his early days, he became one of India’s best players for his age. He won the country’s national titles for players under the ages of eight, 10, 14, 15, and 18. In 1996 in the under-10 group he also won the world title..!
He became the Commonwealth Champion in 2001, World Junior Champion in 2004, and Asian Individual Champion in 2011. Harikrishna is currently the third highest rated player in India.
Success Earned in Many Tournaments
Harikrishna’s success earned him the third board for India at the 2000 Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey, at the age of just 14. He held a positive score with 6.5 out of 11 for the eighth-place Indian team. He also earned his IM title in the same year.
He played in FIDE’s knockout world championship events in 2002 and 2004. As seed 103 in 2002, he lost to GM Alexander Beliavsky. However the 2004 event, as the 69th seed, went slightly better. After a nice first-round victory over GM Xu Jun, Harikrishna lost to fifth-seeded super-GM Vassily Ivanchuk in the second.
The year 2004 was hugely successful for Harikrishna, as he won the World Junior Championship and entered the world’s top-100 ratings, where he has stayed ever since.
Harikrishna has represented India at the biennial Chess Olympiad. His best individual result through 2012 was 8/12 at Turin 2006 while India’s top result was sixth place in 2004.
Harikrishna won the Tata Steel Group B in 2012 and the Biel MTO Masters Tournament Open event in 2013. He represented India at seven Chess Olympiads from 2000 to 2012 and won team Bronze at the World Team Chess Championships in 2010. At the Asian Team Championships, Pentala won team gold once, team silver twice and individual bronze once..!
He became just the third Indian player to ever reach a 2700 rating, after GMs Viswanathan Anand and Krishnan Sasikiran. After a brief falling down in the rating table that summer of 2013, Harikrishna returned to the top order in the month of September and has not looked back since then.
He has married a Serbian named Nadezda Stojanovic in the year 2018.They became parents to a daughter named Maya in 2021. He has been living in Prague since 2018. He plays for the chess club named Novy Bor.
Harikrishna’s rating rose steadily from his teenage years before peaking at the end of 2016. He briefly made the world top-10 in November 2016, and his rating peaked at 2770 the next month. Since then, he has lost about 50 points but remains one of the world’s best players and in the top 30.
In the most recent Olympiad, Harikrishna had India’s best individual performance with 7/10, and the nation finished sixth. The Olympiad hasn’t been Harikrishna’s only team event throughout his career, having been on one gold-winning and two silver-winning clubs in the Asian Team Championships, as well the bronze-winning team at the 2010 World Team Championships.
Harikrishna has yet to play in a Candidates tournament for the world championship. Most recently he was eliminated in the third round of the 2019 Chess World Cup, was unable to escape the first round in any of the 2019 Grand Prix events, and finished in the middle of the pack in the Grand Swiss.
Another great Indian chess player named Viswanathan Anand has played just two official games with Harikrishna at standard time controls, both draws: one at Tata Steel in 2013 and the other at the 2015/16 Bundesliga.
Although the world championship seems out of reach barring an unforeseen change Harikrishna’s trajectory as he enters his mid-30s, he is still a member of the super-GM class of 2700 players and will be a dangerous opponent for some time to come.
Pentala Harikrishna is currently third highest rated player in India. Harikrishna won the Tata Steel Group B in 2012 and the Biel MTO Masters Tournament Open event in 2013. He represented India at seven Chess Olympiads from 2000 to 2012 and won team Bronze at the World Team Chess Championships in 2010.
Pentala Harikrishna has a bright future ahead and if he keeps going on achieving good results then he is sure to make India proud in the days to come..!
By: SIDHARTHA MISHRA
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