14-Yr-Old Bharath Subramaniyam Becomes India's 73rd Chess Grand Master

Fourteen-year-old Bharath Subramaniyam became India's 73rd Chess Grandmaster on Sunday after securing his third and final GM norm at an event in Italy. The teenager from Chennai managed to score 6.5 points from the nine rounds along with four others to finish overall seventh in the event held at Cattolica, as reported by NDTV.

"I played four back-to-back tournaments, and getting my final norm is a big relief, and it is yet to sink in. The key thing here is that I was able to play good chess over a period of time, and that pleased me," Subramaniyam told The Times of India.

Grandmaster Title- It's meaning and Subramaniyam's journey

Grandmaster is the title given out by the world chess organization, The International Chess Federation (FIDE), to chess players. In order to become a Grand Master, one has to bag three GM norms and cross the live rating of 2,500 Elo points. Elo is a rating system method used to calculate players' relative skill levels, here in chess.

Bharath secured his first GM norm after bagging 11th place at the Aeroflot Open in Moscow in February 2020. He secured the second norm after finishing 4th in the Junior Roundtable Under 21 tournament in Bulgaria in October 2021 with 6.5 points.

He registered his win for the final GM norm in Italy on Sunday to become India's 73rd Grandmaster.

Congratulations Are In Order

The All India Chess Federation (AICF) congratulated him for achieving the title. "Fourteen-year-old Bharath Subramaniyam becomes the 73rd Grandmaster of the country after completing his final GM Norm and crossing the 2500 rating at Vergani Cup Open in Italy. All India Chess Federation congratulates Bharath for the achievement," AICF stated on its website.

M Shyam Sundar, Subramaniyam's coach and a grandmaster himself, tweeted to congratulate the teenager for his achievement and suggested focusing on new goals this year. "When I began training him, he was a little averse to taking risks, but that's not the case anymore. Bharath has become more flexible in his approach. He has also gotten sharper with his preparations," Shyam told TOI.

Congratulations Bharath for becoming the latest GM of India!! Let's focus on new goals in this new year!!

— Shyam Sundar (@Shyam_chess) January 9, 2022

Meanwhile, fellow Indian player M R Lalith Babu emerged winner in the tournament with seven points. He got the winning title based on a better tie-breaker score after a tie with three players including Anton Korobov (Ukraine).

Subramaniyam had become an International master in 2019 at the age of 11.

Mitrabha Guha became India's 72nd chess Grandmaster last year in November following Sankalp Gupta, who became India's 71st chess Grandmaster two days prior.

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