Vidit Gujrathi

Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (born 24 October 1994) is an Indian chess player. He attained the title of Grandmaster in January 2013, becoming the 30th player from India to do so. He is currently the third highest rated player in India (behind Viswanathan Anand and Pentala Harikrishna), and is the fourth Indian player to have crossed the Elo rating threshold of 2700.

Vidit Gujrathi
Vidit at the 2018 Tata Steel tournament
CountryIndia
Born (1994-10-24) 24 October 1994[1]
Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India
TitleGrandmaster (2013)
FIDE rating2726 (February 2021)
Peak rating2726 (March 2020)
RankingNo. 24 (December 2020)
Peak rankingNo. 22 (March 2020)

Early life and chess career

Vidit Santosh Gujrathi was born in Indore to Santosh Gujrathi and Nikita Santosh Gujrathi. He did his early schooling at Fravashi Academy and was coached in chess from an early age. In 2006, he finished second in the Asian Youth Championships in the U12 category, thus receiving the title of FIDE Master.[2]

Gujrathi achieved the title of International Master when he secured 7 points out of 13 in the Velammal 45th National A Chess Championship in Chennai in 2008.[3] In 2008, he won the World Youth Chess Championship in the Open U14 section, the first Indian to do so.[4] He scored 9 points out of a possible 11, gaining his final norm to become an International Master.

He finished 2nd in the U-16 category of the World Youth Chess Championships in 2009, tying at 9 points to the eventual winner S.P. Sethuraman, also from India.[5] In the World Junior Chess Championship in Chennai in 2011, held for U20 players, Vidit finished with 8 points out of 11, thus gaining his first GM norm.[6]

In the Nagpur International Open in 2011, Vidit finished with 8 points out of 11, one point behind the eventual winner Ziaur Rahman. He gained his second GM norm in the tournament.[7] Vidit achieved his final GM norm in the eighth round of the Rose Valley Kolkata Open Grandmasters' chess tournament in 2012, where he finished third.[8]

In 2013, Vidit won a bronze medal in the World Junior Chess Championship in Turkey in the Junior (U-20) category.[9][10] Vidit finished third in the Hyderabad International Grandmasters chess tournament in 2013, winning Rs 1.5 lakh.[11]

Vidit has been also performing in the top 10 of other tournaments, including the Commonwealth Championship in 2008. Throughout the years, Vidit was also coached by IM Anup Deshmukh, IM Roktim Bandopadhyay, and GM Alon Greenfeld of Israel.[12] Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte, who also coached Vidit earlier, said in 2013 that Vidit could reach an Elo rating of 2700 in two-three years. Kunte also considered Vidit's positional sense excellent, comparing him to the Indian chess player P Harikrishna.[9]

From 22 November 2019 to 25 November, he competed in the Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz, as a wildcard. He finished in a tie for eighth with fellow wildcard Pentala Harikrishna.[13]He was a part of first event of the 2020-21 tour is the Skilling Open with a prize fund of 1 lac US dollars.[14]

He was the captain of the historic Gold winning Indian team in FIDE Online Chess Olympiad 2020. He also shared a behind the scenes story on GRAPHY, how they become a champion of the FIDE Online Chess Olympiad, how he and vice-captain Srinath Narayan manage the team, and how it helped his team management skills.[15][16]

Vidit also has a YouTube channel, which has over 167,000 subscribers as of February 3, 2021.

Notable Results

References
  1. "About me section on his website". Retrieved 24 November 2013.
  2. "Asian Youth championship 2006 U12". FIDE. Retrieved 15 December 2013.
  3. "Velammal 45th National A Chess Championship, 2008". FIDE. Retrieved 15 December 2013.
  4. Manuel Aaron (31 October 2013). "India dominates World Youth championships". Retrieved 2 December 2013.
  5. "World Youth Chess Championships 2009 Final Standings". Organiser. Retrieved 2 December 2013.
  6. "World Junior Chess Championship 2011". Retrieved 16 December 2013.
  7. "Nagpur International Open 2012". Retrieved 16 December 2013.
  8. "Four Indians in seven-way lead; Gujrathi is GM". Hindu. 12 December 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
  9. "Historic World Junior Chess bronze for Vidit Gujrathi". Times of India. 27 September 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
  10. "India's Vidit Gujarathi wins bronze at World Junior Chess". First Post. 27 September 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
  11. "Sethuraman and Varun take titles". Hindu. 4 December 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
  12. "Winning is a habit for whizkid Vidit". Hindu. 17 September 2009. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
  13. https://grandchesstour.org/2019-grand-chess-tour/2019-tata-steel-chess-india-rapid-blitz
  14. "Vidit Gujrathi will star in the Champions Chess Tour Skilling Open - ChessBase India". www.chessbase.in. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  15. "Online Chess Olympiad 2020: Vidit S Gujrathi, D Harika and Nihal Sarin win as India reach semis after Armenia lose appeal - Sports News , Firstpost". Firstpost. 28 August 2020. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
  16. "Team captain Vidit Gujrathi looks back at India's dramatic shared title at the Online Chess Olympiad". The Indian Express. 4 September 2020. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
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