Hyderabad: Rahul Srivatshav Peddi of Telangana became India’s 74th Grandmaster, achieving the title after breaking the 2500 (Elo points) barrier in live FIDE ratings during the 9th Cattolica Chess Festival 2022 in Italy.
The 19-year-old reached the 2500 Elo live rating mark after drawing his eighth round game against Grandmaster Levan Pantsulaia in the Cattolica event.
His current Elo rating is 2468.
Rahul had already secured five GM norms and achieved the title when he crossed the rating threshold of 2500 on Friday.
To become a GM, a player has to secure three GM norms and cross the live rating of 2500 Elo points.
“India one more step closer to getting 100 Grandmasters! Meet our newest addition to the elite club, 19-year-old Rahul Srivatshav from Telangana, India’s 74th Grandmaster! A big congratulations to Rahul, his coach and family!,” All India Chess Federation president Sanjay Kapoor tweeted on Saturday.
Bharath Subramaniyam had become the country’s 73rd GM in January. The legendary Viswanathan Anand is India’s first GM, which he became way back in 1988. Rahul is coached by Grand Master Sipke Ernst of The Netherlands.
He became International master (IM) in January 2018 and got his first GM norm in August 2019 at Greece, second GM norm in December 2019 at Serbia and third GM norm in
December 2019 at Italy. He got two GM norms in consecutive tournaments in Serbia and Italy in December 2019. He got his fourth GM norm at the US Masters and the fifth GM norm in Cattolica Italy and crossed the Live Elo rating of 2500 on June 10, 2022.
Early bird Rahul showed interest in chess with amazing calculations, highest memory at an early age of eight and started training in group classes. Subsequently, he trained under specialised coaches.
Rahul started participating in state and national level tournaments from 2009 onwards. He justified his talent by being two time champion at the state level championship (under-9 and under-11 categories), took second place in the Telangana state rapid open and won the Telangana State Blitz open.
He was a runner up and second runner up at national level under-11 and under-9 championships. He represented Telangana state in the Under-13 Nationals at Jamshedpur in October 2015 and finished joint second.
So far Rahul has represented India six times – three times at Asian level youth championship held in Sri Lanka, Iran and Uzbekistan and the World Youth Chmpionships held in Slovenia, UAE and South Africa. He also represented the Indian team at the World Youth Chess Olympiad held in Ahmedabad in 2017. He won the bronze at the Commonwealth Chess 2015 in New Delhi; another bronze at the Asian Youth tournament in 2012 in Sri Lanka; and one more bronze at the Asian Schools Chess Championship back in 2011.
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