KOLKATA: An idea floated quite casually has led to the foundation of an academy that is showing promise of making India the world’s next chess superpower. Sandeep Singhal, co-founder of WestBridge Capital Advisors, a venture capital firm based out of Bengaluru, asked Viswanathan Anand whether they can do something together in chess after the five-time world champion was on his way out after a lecture session at their office in 2019. Anand assured he will get back.
“Obviously I had some ideas to work on. I grew up with stories of the Botvinnik Chess Academy (where top Soviet players used to train) and saw the Olympic Gold Quest where the foundation takes care of the backend activities of the players. So it was more of a combination of a lot of things that led to the birth of WestBridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA) in December 2020 with the first lecture taking place in January 2021,” Anand stated.
“Our idea was to have a proper ecosystem in place for the growth of the players,” Singhal added.
The first decision was about selecting players and Anand said “We decided on those who are very young and very strong.” Accordingly, the journey began with the brother-sister duo of Praggnanandhaa and Rameshbabu Vaishali along with D Gukesh, Nihal Sarin and Raunak Sadhwani. “We got Leon (Mendonca) on board in December after he became a Grandmaster during the lockdown period. Later on, Arjun (Erigaisi) joined while Savitha Shri is the latest entrant,” Anand said.
As it happened during the Covid time, the classes were held online around thrice a week with coaches Boris Gelfand, Grzegorz Gajewski, Artur Yusupov and Sandipan Chanda. And results started showing with almost all of the players recording a huge rise in rating points.
Anand himself is deeply involved mainly in the planning part. “I keep in touch with the coaches and get monthly feedback from them along with looking after the training schedules. But personally I share my experiences with them,” Anand stated.
The youngsters too are finding the journey exciting. “The classes are very motivating and also fun. I find those enjoyable,” this year’s Arjuna award winner Praggu stated. “All the coaches are very helpful and the way they support you in analysing your mistakes helps a lot,” Arjun, who made rapid strides after joining WACA, stated.
Youngest of them Savitha has already gelled well with her classmates. “I learnt a lot from the way they all analyse positions,” she said. “We mostly solve positions and classes are always very challenging and interesting,” Gukesh pointed out.
Looking ahead, India’s first GM said “at the beginning we had a rough idea of having a couple of Indian players in the world’s top 10 and we are inching closer to that.” It’s a journey that has just begun, but began well.
