NEW DELHI: In a country where the love for cricket is a national obsession, chess is the sport of choice in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where its city of Chennai is emerging as India’s chess capital.
Over a third of the country’s 85 grandmasters have come from Tamil Nadu, with the majority of them based in Chennai, including 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju, the world’s youngest chess champion.
Dommaraju won the title in early December at the Fide World Championship 2024 held in Singapore, defeating titleholder Ding Liren of China, who was 14 years his senior.
Dommaraju is the second Indian to win the World Chess Championship after Viswanathan Anand — India’s first grandmaster — who won it five times and is also from Chennai.
The city’s success in bringing up champions over the years can be traced back to the Velammal Nexus School, which has helped produce as many as 22 grandmasters, including Dommaraju and 2024 Chess World Cup finalist R. Praggnanandhaa.
“Chess players are heroes in Tamil Nadu,” Velavan Subbiah, the main coach at the Velammal Nexus school, told Arab News.
“In Chennai, people prefer to play chess rather than invest in cricket. Viswanathan Anand laid the foundation here. Now Gukesh is the new hero. His win in the world championship has inspired the youngsters and there is new zeal among them to do better.”
The 55-year-old who started focusing on chess after seeing his daughters win grandmaster and FIDE master titles said Velammal not only trains young players but also sponsors those who have financial difficulties.
Now a chain of 15 schools in Chennai, the academy trains about 2,000 students and plans to expand to other parts of India.
“In the future, we want to develop more young achievers,” he said. “It’s our goal to dominate in India in chess.”
In Chennai, family support also plays a major role in nurturing talents, with parents investing their time and money to support the younger generation’s chess pursuit.
After introducing his daughters to the sport five years ago, Kannappan Dinesh has been busy helping them hone their skills and signing them up in local tournaments.
“Kids, if you notice, will get easily addicted to mobile or TV, but if you give them a chance to play chess they will easily perform well,” Dinesh told Arab News.
“For the parents here, it’s an investment. If you invest more time with your kids and invest in their talents, you will be rewarded. I think this attitude separates the parents in Tamil Nadu from other parts of India.”
With both daughters enrolled in Velammal, Dinesh credits the school for “providing all kinds of support.
“They take care of you in all aspects, and the infrastructure that they have supports the kids to grow and learn faster and perform better,” he said, adding that he was more motivated following Dommaraju’s historic win.
“After seeing Gukesh and all, even as parents we feel that (we need to) give our kids a chance.”
Dinesh’s 11-year-old daughter, Ayushi, is already aiming for the stars.
“I want to become a world champion like Gukesh because me and my sisters are passionate about chess,” she told Arab News.
“Gukesh is my true inspiration, and he teaches us that with the right mindset and dedication, we can achieve any goal.”
Nitin Narang, president of the Chess Federation of India, said that Chennai’s emergence as “a Makkah of chess” came from a foundation laid long ago.
“Chennai is often described as the Makkah of Indian chess and rightly so because there has been a lot of effort on the ground by lots of coaches and parents’ sacrifices,” Narang told Arab News.
“What you see today is something that has been going on in Chennai in the last three decades and these are the fruits we bear nationally.”
