Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju has become the youngest ever world chess champion, deepening the “love affair between Indians and chess”, said The Hindu.
Chess has been “around for millennia” and is “generally believed to have originated in India”. Now, the city of Chennai is producing a host of national champions, including 18-year-old Dommaraju.
Wizards and geniuses
The “poker-faced, lanky teen” is part of “the latest crop” of chess “wizards” that the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu has “churned out” over the last 10 years, said Al Jazeera. The state has produced 31 grandmasters out of 85 in all of India and even has a temple for the sport in the Tiruvarur district.
Sign up for The Week’s Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up
But the “glory that has embraced Indian chess in recent years is rooted in humble beginnings, defined by sacrifice and dedication” at the city’s schools and academies where “dreams are forged” and then “shaped for success”.
The Velammal Nexus school in Chennai, where many of the game’s “young trailblazers” have attended, has an exclusive chess academy, where 56-year-old Velavan Subbiah is building a “pipeline of chess geniuses”.