Chennai has a long and colourful history with chess, from temples of Shiva a few hundred kilometres away celebrating its earliest iteration, known as sathurangam (at Thirupoovanur in Tiruvarur district), to it hosting the latest International Chess Olympiad at Mammallapuram, the first of its kind to be held in India.
So, it is not surprising that, according to FIDE (the International Chess Federation, or Fédération Internationale des Échecs) as of 2022, of the 76 Grandmasters (GM) in India, 17 are from Chennai alone and of the five Indian players in the top 55 in the world, two are from Chennai. The question remains though, on whose shoulders are these contemporary Chennai chess players standing?
