KOLKATA: It's raining Grandmasters in India. After Vidarbha's Sankalp Gupta achieved the title on Sunday, Bengal's Mitrabha Guha became India's 72nd GM on Tuesday by earning his third and final norm in the GM Third Saturday Mix 220 at Novi Sad, Serbia. To achieve the GM title, a player has to secure three GM norms and cross the live rating of 2,500 Elo points.
Not only was Guha executing his moves on the board right, he planned well to earn the title too. The 20-yearold decided to give the final push after earning his second GM norm just 13 days ago at the Sheikh Russel International GM in Bangladesh. "I decided to pack my bags for Serbia in one day after returning from Dhaka," Guha told TOI from Serbia on Tuesday.
Needing two more points with an Elo rating of 2498 then, Guha decided to take his chance. "I am having a good run in the recent tournaments and felt this is the right time to go for it," he stated. Guha proved himself right by joining the elite club in international chess with a round still to go in the tournament. In a way it was a fast ride for Guha to the title after he earned his first norm in 2018 only at the 20th Sant Marti International Chess Open in Spain. Interestingly Guha was working without a coach from 2018 when he achieved two of his norms.
Introduced to the game by his father Raj, Guha, who started playing at the age of four years, developed an instant liking for it. "Becoming a GM was always at the back of my mind since the day I started playing chess," Guha said. Tutored by GM Dibyendu Barua, Soham Das and International Master Atanu Lahiri, the introvert boy's journey was halted over the last two years due to the pandemic. "Although I didn't miss the game much then as I was playing a lot of online tournaments, but my rating got struck with no over-the-board events," he said. Guha defeated World champion Magnus Carlsen twice in an online friendly meet during this time.
He managed to return to 'real' chess by taking part in the Bangladesh Premier Division Chess League in March this year before another round of lockdown forced him to stay indoors again.
