Grand Master Vladimir Kramnik to train six young Indian chess players in Switzerland

Chennai: Six young Indian chess players will get trained by former world champion and Grand Master Vladimir Kramnik in Switzerland from tomorrow. Kramnik, who retired recently, will coach the six young players from 14 to 25 August, an organiser of the camp told PTI. The players are: D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa, P Iniyan and Arjun Erigasi, all Grand Masters and Raunak Sadhwani and Leon Mendonca, International Masters. [caption id=“attachment_5986031” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Vladimir Kramnik. Reuters[/caption] All of them are in the 12-16 years age-group. According to Sujit Singh, chief executive officer of Microsense, a global technology company, the idea of organising the camp was to enable promising youngsters get trained by a renowned player and a former world champ at that. “We have been sponsoring budding, talented players for a few years now. We thought why not get these young players trained by a player like Russian Vladimir Kramnik, a world champion, who is retired. Initially we thought we will have it in India. Then we decided to have it in Switzerland as Kramnik lives there.” He said the main objective of the camp was to create more world champions and more in the top-10. Erode-based Iniyan, who became India’s 61st Grand Master (the total is 64 currently), is excited about being part of the camp. “This is probably the first time a former world champion is coaching Indian players. I am looking forward to the training by Kramnik,” he added. He said his immediate priority was to increase his Elo rating to 2600 and hoped the stint with the Russian legend would help sharpen his game. Kramnik has been quoted as saying that it would mean a lot to share his knowledge with promising juniors. For the past couple of years, Microsense has been supporting close to 20 young chess players, which included both boys and girls.