Chess: For 14-year-old Grandmaster Nihal Sarin, focus now shifts to taking on the world’s best

With an ELO rating of 2506, the 14-year-old Nihal Sarin started the World Blitz tournament in December last year as the 139th seed. No one gave him a chance — which was to be expected given how the tournament had attracted top Grandmasters from around the world.

The Open starting list was headed by five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand, the reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen, and other top like Grandmasters Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Anish Giri (Netherlands), Levon Aronian, Alexander Grischuk, Sergey Karjakin, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Peter Svidler and India’s no 2 Harikrishna Pentala.

To many observers, Sarin was there to get some experience. Once again, it seemed logical. Sarin was just 14, he had become a Grandmaster in August 2018 and while his level was very high, most thought he would be out of his depth.

But after a slow start — he was 4.0/8 — Sarin got going. In the next 13 games, he scored 9.5 points. When the 21st round ended, the young Indian GM had scored 13.5 out of a possible 21.

Magnus Carlsen won the title with 17 out of 21 but Sarin’s performance – he finished joint 11th – did not go unnoticed. He beat seven opponents above the rating of 2600 and three above 2700. In fact many might consider the performance to be astounding give the quality of opponents he was facing but to Sarin himself, it just kind of happened.

“At the end of the first day, I ended up on +2. The second day was… I somehow played very well. It was the best tournament I have played,” said Sarin in a telephonic conversation with Scroll.in. “I think the first day gave me some confidence. That should be it. I was playing much better… just like that.”

Now that he finally had to give it some thought, he ventured a little further.

“I like Blitz a bit more than classical. I don’t know what is the main difference [between Blitz and Classical] but I think in Blitz, there might be more chances against certain opponents. I think in Blitz you can play a little more bravely, for some reason I am not sure… in Classical, on the other hand, one tends to play more conservatively. I think whoever has the better intuition is the better Blitz player… intuition is a big factor in Blitz. And maybe playing a lot online has helped improve my intuition.”

Lots of maybe’s but perhaps that is how it should be. The moment a player starts feeling like he has all the answers is the moment when the player starts to look elsewhere. If you see the statistics, a lot of GMs don’t just stay at 2500, they lose motivation after becoming GMs. In India, for instance, we now have 60 GMs but we have only 20-25, over 2500 and still playing actively.

For Sarin, becoming a GM was important but only because it was something that had to be done. It was perhaps more important to push past it and concentrate on getting better. But still the more he kept missing the norms, the more it seemed to weigh him down.

“It’s good to be a GM. It took me a while to get there. A big pressure is gone after getting the norm. I missed many norms by very close margins,” said Sarin referring to the untold pressure of getting the third and final norm.

Sarin’s coach Srinath Narayanan, who is a GM himself, feels that Nihal can get back to what he loves most now.

“Before he became GM, there were a few games where the pressure just got to him and he lost. After that, it has been sort of a free flow. In the previous generation, a lot of people just had the ambition to become a GM… But with these kids, it was never about becoming a GM or chasing records. They fell in love with the game, got addicted and they had a good environment to support it,” said Srinath.

A big part of the transition from playing slightly lower-ranked opponents to the super GMs is the opening preparation.

“At this level, everyone knows how to play chess at a very good level. So I think here, the openings start making more of a difference, so opening prep becomes very important. That is one of the biggest changes at this level for Nihal. Till now, the focus on it was much lesser but once you start playing against people at this level, then the chances of getting an undesirable position early is much higher,” said Srinath.

It is an aspect of the game that Nihal acknowledges and one that he has experienced as well. Recently, at the Tata Open, he played Viswanathan Anand for the first time.

“My opponents are much stronger than before and now I have to improve a lot especially in preparation. There is a lot more theoretical knowledge that players have at this level and it means that I have to work a lot more than before,” said Sarin. “It is certainly more exciting to face the established players.”

And while Sarin looks to add depth, his team also knows that he can’t ignore his natural versatility.

“Being versatile is starting to become sort of an essential quality because your opponent will never quite know what exactly to prepare for,” added Srinath. “So for all these years, there were two schools — one the specialists and the others were players with a wide range. Depth has to be much higher at this level. Till now, Nihal has had a lot of versatility. Now, he is trying to add depth.”

And perhaps the best and surest way of getting better is to seek out better… stronger opponents. There is no real substitute for match play.

“We are constantly trying to expose Nihal to strong tournaments; strong opposition. Essentially, that is the way you get better,” said Srinath. “When you play against these people you stretch and that just can’t be simulated with training. Nothing like actual match play. So I think it is very important to keep playing against top-class opposition and when that happens a lot of improvements take place.”

“We want to let him do his thing and introduce him to an environment that is conducive to his growth. So that is working with people he enjoys, who are very highly skilled at chess. Then, the other part is playing top-level opponents.

“He is already at the level where he can beat them occasionally. I think he can grow very fast if we can create the right environment for him and make sure funds are not an issue, which is maybe the biggest killer of talent in the game.”

Sarin knows that his journey is just starting but for now, he isn’t giving it much thought — he just wants to eat, sleep, play chess. Repeat.