Father bought residence, give up job; mom pledged gold: The making of Sahithi Varshini, India’s newest WGM

NEW DELHI: In May 2019, earlier than the pandemic had pressed the pause button on the global community, Sagar Shah, already an International Master (IM) and one of the vital influential voices in in the present day’s chess fraternity, wrote a line in his ChessBase column: “Just like Humpy (Koneru) and Harika (Dronavalli) have made the global community be aware of Indian girls’s chess through the years, we’ve a sense that inside just a few years Sahithi (Varshini Moogi) and Savitha (Shri Baskar) may also be proper up there with the most effective in girls’s chess!”

More than seven years have handed, and the identical line reads much less like a prediction and extra like a query of legacy, very like asking whether or not Lamine Yamal might change into the following Lionel Messi for Barcelona or whether or not Carlos Alcaraz might carry the torch of Spanish tennis after Rafael Nadal.Savitha added a team bronze to her growing list of accolades while also becoming the only Indian to win an individual gold medal at the eventBoth ladies are actually 19. At the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand final month, Savitha added a staff bronze to her rising checklist of accolades whereas additionally turning into the one Indian to win a person gold medal on the occasion.Sahithi Varshini, alternatively, has had a much less embellished profession to this point. The Vizag-born prodigy lately grew to become India’s newest Woman Grandmaster (WGM), a milestone by any measure. But is that this the most effective she will do?“Whatever she has achieved to this point, together with this one (the WGM title), is lower than her potential. This is only a mere starting,” Lokeswara Moogi Rao, her father and solely coach thus far, advised TimesofIndia.com in an unique interplay.

The title and the three norms behind it

Just final month, Sahithi’s third and remaining WGM norm got here on the IM VII Round Robin in Serbia. The 2007-born participant completed second with 6/9, recorded a efficiency score of 2408, and gained 23 score factors. That accomplished the necessities.The first two norms got here in Hungary. The first was achieved on the Golden Horse IM Round Robin in September 2025, whereas the second got here on the Kanizsa Open in August 2026, the place she defeated GM Yeshaayahu Tzidkiya and recorded a efficiency score of 2429.

On paper, it might seem like a clear development. But the story behind it’s a lot messier.To give a glimpse of how difficult it has been, when Sahithi was six, she caught dengue. She was on a ventilator for per week. She survived, and her household has at all times seen her restoration as a second life.

What’s within the identify?

Long earlier than chess grew to become part of his life, Lokeswara Moogi Rao, often known as Lokesh within the circuit, had found his ardour in literature. During his school days, he spent hours immersed in English novels and sometimes tried his hand at writing. Years later, that love for literature would discover its manner into the identify of his second daughter.“Sahithi is just like Sahitya, which suggests literature,” Lokesh defined. But the identify had one other affect, one rooted in music.Lokesh comes from a household with a wealthy inventive background. His father’s aspect of the household was concerned in theatre, and music was additionally a part of their family. Lokesh himself was a eager singer, profitable a number of prizes on the state stage. Among the ragas he significantly admired was Amruthavarshini, whose identify he wished to attract upon for his daughter.

His spouse, nonetheless, felt that literature deserved a spot within the identify, too. And so, the 2 influences got here collectively — Sahithi, impressed by literature, and Varshini, drawn from music.“But finally, she didn’t belong to both of the 2 and selected the 64 squares,” Lokesh stated with a smile. “She made a reputation for herself in a special area.”Lokesh was born in a distant village on the sting of Yarada Hills, shut sufficient to the ocean that you would see it from the highest. But there was no electrical energy. His father’s aspect of the household had earned a residing promoting fish. Walking to the following colony for meals took half an hour.He nonetheless grew to become a college topper after which a state-ranked pupil within the engineering entrance. But the household couldn’t afford it. Lokesh’s father had retired, and there was no monetary backup. He left the course, took a small job after finishing a diploma course, and completed an engineering diploma by correspondence. Years later, he joined HPCL as an officer.

How chess made entry

Lokesh was in his early 30s when he began taking chess critically. He ran a literature membership, a small group that exchanged idioms, brief tales, and poems by e mail, making an attempt to sharpen their English in Vizag.One member, Dinesh, a younger medical pupil who lived reverse him, introduced an enormous chess trophy to the membership at some point after turning into the Andhra University chess champion. Having learnt that Lokesh had performed chess as a baby, Dinesh turned up at his home at ten one evening with a chessboard.Lokesh’s spouse Jaya Sri, nonetheless, was left unimpressed, asking the 2 of them to play the sport on the balcony.Lokesh was near profitable the primary sport after which collapsed. The subsequent day Dinesh received two extra. The day after, he received two once more, and advised Lokesh he had discovered his weak point. “I took it as a problem,” Lokesh recalled. “I wished to win one sport in opposition to him. That is the way it began.”He purchased a e-book from an area store and commenced studying within the refinery’s management room, the place officers sit round digital boards working the plant. He would sketch positions on paper, then rub them out and redraw. A senior colleague, VS Prasad, caught him doing it and requested if he performed chess. Lokesh begged him to not inform the bosses. Prasad took him dwelling as an alternative, to a shelf of 40 or 50 chess books.

One was Max Euwe’s The Road to Chess Mastery. For a person in love with literature, it definitely felt like a heaven. “It was like a Sherlock Holmes novel type of a factor,” he advised this web site.Soon, beating Dinesh grew to become a routine. “I received some 5 to 10 video games right away,” he shared.Within three months, he made the HPCL staff, and inside six months of that he was on the nationwide alternatives for the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB), ending second. He performed for the board for roughly seven years, typically captaining HPCL.At tournaments, he shared the corridor with grandmasters corresponding to Pentala Harikrishna, Shyam Sundar and Koneru Humpy, amongst others.He was by no means the strongest participant in these rooms. Nevertheless, what he had was an urge for food for classical chess. He would take a gap concept from a e-book, arrange the place, and put it to the GMs. They advised him he would at some point be one of many most interesting coaches within the nation.“So that was the inspiration,” he stated, giving us a contact of the philosophy behind Sahithi’s strategy in the present day.

A dream that wasn’t a title

The formal coach inside Lokesh grew to become energetic when her daughters began enjoying. Despite Sahithi displaying early promise, he by no means set himself a goal of IM or GM. What he wished was a specific type of sport.“I at all times had a really massive dream to make her somebody like Fischer and Kasparov, not a GM and all,” he famous. “I by no means considered making IM, GM after which rejoice it. Those moments are vital, undoubtedly, in life to cherish and transfer ahead. But my dream was to make her somebody like a legend.”That ambition exhibits in how she performs. She goes for sacrifices and attacking positions, and her video games grabbed early consideration.

At 14, she was rated over 2200. Her attacking play drew reward from Scottish Grandmaster, world-famous chess coach, and creator Jacob Aagaard. She additionally beat girls’s global community champion Mariya Muzychuk.“She by no means fears the opponent. She simply performs her fashion,” her coach stated.Soon, she had additionally received a stack of age-group medals, amongst them Asian and Commonwealth golds.

Three years the sport took again

Then got here COVID. Sahithi was at her peak, rated extremely and seeded on the high of her age teams, and the tournaments stopped. She missed nearly three years of aggressive chess.“You are enjoying so nicely, and abruptly, you do not have the choice of enjoying repeatedly,” Lokesh stated. “That was actually annoying.”Leave from work was an issue even earlier than the pandemic. She certified for a global community championship however couldn’t journey. After the lockdowns, Lokesh took lengthy depart and moved the household overseas, reasoning {that a} rented residence would price lower than repeated flights. It was a raffle, and he knew it.It additionally uncovered a special drawback. Online chess meant each sport she performed in open tournaments was revealed, and opponents might put together in opposition to her on the click on of a button. A participant who beloved to shock folks was abruptly simple to review. She tried switching openings from at some point to the following, which backfired in opposition to stronger opposition.Playing 2300-rated gamers, he defined, you can’t get away with half-prepared techniques. “It did backfire for nearly a 12 months,” he stated.But she got here out of it understanding extra openings than earlier than. And in 2022 she performed on the Chess Olympiad in Chennai, a member of India’s C girls’s staff and among the many youngest within the squad. “Playing for India is at all times a particular factor,” Lokesh advised this web site.

After the Olympiad, the targets slipped away. She was near 2300 however not there, and the corporate couldn’t preserve granting depart.

It price Lokesh his job

The journeys overseas have been costly. HPCL contributed round Rs 10 lakh to Sahithi’s profession, and the Andhra Pradesh authorities gave the same quantity, but it surely was not sufficient.“I needed to promote an residence,” Lokesh revealed. His spouse’s gold was pledged. He was working out of choices when he reached probably the most troublesome choice nearly three years again. “There was just one manner. I needed to give up my job,” he recalled.He resigned and arrange a chess academy, which he admits was more durable than it sounded. A begin in Hyderabad didn’t work for about ten months, partly as a result of he was away at tournaments with Sahithi.Then, he had a bypass operation, the center surgical procedure that pressured him to cease for months and decreased each his earnings and his power.Around the identical time, kinfolk pressed him to make Sahithi end class 10. She took 9 months away from chess to do it.“It units the morale down,” he stated of the surgical procedure. “Financially, it additionally consumes.”Jaya Sri was a rock all through. “I recognize my spouse greater than me to be extra braver than myself,” he stated. For a lady who was not incomes and had no connection to chess, residing with promoting property, shifting nation, and watching her husband depart his job, he considers it a far more durable act of religion than his personal.

His elder daughter Falguni, now a FIDE arbiter, helped too, paying her personal charges and hire by instructing courses.The choice to open the chess academy turned out higher than he feared. Back in Visakhapatnam, the academy grew.His pupil Aarav Sinha has collected 4 IM norms, and others gained a whole lot of score factors inside months on the European circuit. More than fifteen gamers now practice with him, and he’s writing a e-book on the 2200 stage.“After surgical procedure, I’ve had greater achievements in comparison with pre-surgery,” he remarked.

What comes subsequent

Sahithi was his first pupil. She stays the one he measures the remainder in opposition to. But she shouldn’t be, by his father’s account, in the most effective place mentally.“She is somewhat demotivated, to be frank,” Lokesh added. The three misplaced years nonetheless weigh on her. Her recommendation, nonetheless, is identical each time.“How you begin shouldn’t be as vital as the way you finish,” he tells her. “Whatever you missed in these years, no regrets for that. Just have a look at what alternatives you might have.”The plan is to construct power moderately than chase a score. “If you might be 2500, you must have the ability to play like a 2500,” he defined. “It shouldn’t merely occur together with your score. You ought to deserve it.”

The more durable impediment is entry. Official occasions such because the Asian Championships, Commonwealth occasions and World Juniors include lodge prices that the household can’t simply meet. Lokesh believes that if Sahithi is given these platforms, outcomes and sponsors will observe. If not, he’ll preserve creating his personal alternatives.“I’m optimistic that manner, moderately than regretting not having massive sponsors,” he acknowledged.“There are not any massive names on this journey. No godfathers. You do not require massive names to make your stamp. It is your willpower, your ardour for the sport, your dedication, and the way you maintain within the troublesome phases that take you ahead.”Perhaps Sagar Shah had received it proper all these years in the past. Like rice that takes time to prepare dinner to perfection over a mild flame, Sahithi Varshini, too, might have time to return into her personal. And when she does, it might be to hold ahead the legacy of those that got here earlier than her in chess, sooner moderately than later.