Chess
P. Shyam Nikhil becomes India's 85th Chess Grandmaster
It took 12 years for P. Shyam Nikhil to achieve his all GM norms and become India's 85th Chess Grandmaster.
P Shyam Nikhil became the 85th Indian Chess Grandmaster. (Source: Chessbase India)
The list of Indian Chess Grandmasters kept growing as P. Shyam Nikhil became the 85th Grandmaster of Indian Chess after he achieved his final norm at the Dubai Police Masters 2024.
32-year-old Shyam took 12 years to achieve all his Grandmaster norms and displayed immense grit and persistence in his journey. Shyam has crossed the 2500 Elo rating mark in 2012.
Shyam became the first Grandmaster in 2024 as R Vaishali received her final GM norm in 2023 making her India's 84th Grandmaster.
Including R Vaishali, a total of seven Indians achieved the GM norm in 2023. Koustav Chatterjee, Pranesh M, Vignesh NR, Sayantan Das, Prraneeth Vuppala, and Aditya Samant were the other Indian Grandmasters.
Indian chess has been on a constant rise with the likes of D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa, R Vaishali, Vidit Gujrathi, Arjun Erigaisi, and Koneru Humpy leading the charge at the global level.
Recently, D Gukesh won the prestigious Candidates 2024 tournament and will be challenging World Champion Ding Liren while R Vaishali and R Praggnanandhaa returned good results in the tournament.
Earlier in 2023, R Praggnanadhaa finished runner-up at the Chess World Cup and received worldwide praise for his performance.
