He Quit His Software Job to Chase Chess — Now Anuj Shrivatri Is India’s 100th Grandmaster

November 9, 2026 Faizan Altaf

A 22-year-old from a small town in Madhya Pradesh has made Indian chess history. Anuj Shrivatri became India’s 100th chess Grandmaster on Sunday, 8 November 2026, after winning the 7th ASEAN Plus Individual Open Chess Championship in the Philippines — and he did it after giving up a comfortable software engineering job to chase the dream full-time.

It is a milestone 38 years in the making. When the legendary Viswanathan Anand became India’s first Grandmaster in 1988, the country had exactly one player at the top of world chess. Now it has 100. And Shrivatri, the first Grandmaster ever from Madhya Pradesh, is the player who carried Indian chess across that line.

His story is about more than a tournament win. It is about a family that poured its savings into a child’s dream, a young man who turned down a chance to work in Germany, and a country where chess has gone from a quiet pastime to a national obsession.

What happened in the Philippines

Shrivatri won the 7th ASEAN Plus Individual Open Chess Championship in Ozamiz City, Philippines, finishing with seven points from nine rounds. Vietnam’s Nguyen Duc Hoa finished second with 6.5 points.

The victory earned Shrivatri the Grandmaster title directly, under the championship’s special conditions approved by chess’s world governing body, FIDE. The tournament was held at the Asenso Global Youth Leadership and Sports Complex in Misamis Occidental.

As he prepared to board his flight home, Shrivatri struggled to contain his excitement. “I had been trying for the GM title for a long time,” he told reporters. Now the long wait is over — and his home state finally has a Grandmaster of its own.

His father, Ashok Shrivatri, summed up what it meant for Madhya Pradesh in Hindi: “Madhya Pradesh main jo soonapan chal raha tha, woh poora ho gaya” — the drought in Madhya Pradesh chess, of not having a Grandmaster, is finally over.

A chess journey that started at seven

Anuj Shrivatri comes from Katni, a town in Madhya Pradesh. He started playing chess in 2011, when he was seven years old. His first coach was VK Tiwari, who shaped his early understanding of the game. Later, Niklesh Jain became one of his early coaches and then a mentor.

His talent showed early. On a trip to Spain for a tournament, he earned his first International Master norm — one of the stepping stones towards the higher titles. His mentor remembers having to pull chess books out of the young Anuj’s hands so he would rest, because he was so absorbed in studying the game.

“The two most important qualities about Anuj were his competitive spirit and his hunger for knowledge,” Jain said.

Shrivatri became an International Master in 2020, at the age of 19, just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down tournaments around the world. His mentor believes he would have become a Grandmaster much earlier if the pandemic had not cost him years of competition. With no tournaments to play, he focused on his studies instead.

He was a school topper, and he went on to earn a BTech degree from Lovely Professional University in Punjab, specialising in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. It was the kind of qualification that opens doors to a safe, well-paid career in technology. And for a while, that is exactly where he was heading.

The job he gave up

After university, Shrivatri secured a job as a software engineer with a German company. He worked from home in Madhya Pradesh, and the firm offered him the chance to move to its base in Germany — the kind of offer that can change a life.

But his heart was elsewhere. Chasing the Grandmaster title needs eight to nine hours of chess training every day, and combining that with a full-time software job was not possible. “You need to focus at least eight to nine hours on your chess if you want to chase success in the sport. Juggling that and a software engineering job was not possible,” his father said.

So Shrivatri made the brave choice: he left the safe job behind and went full-time into chess.

It was a gamble. There was no sponsorship. Every trip abroad came out of his own pocket, paid for largely by what he earned playing rapid tournaments and coaching other players. “Finances were the biggest struggle, because I was managing everything myself and there was no sponsorship as such. I was earning money from rapid tournaments and spending it on trips abroad,” he said.

His family backed him completely. His father, a teacher — like his mother — said chess always came first in their home. “Apne liye sabse pehle chess tha,” Ashok said: for us, chess always came first.

The sacrifices were real. Whatever savings the family had each year went into making Anuj a better chess player. If he wanted to play in a tournament anywhere in the world, his father’s answer was always the same: “Plan karlo” — go ahead and plan it. Ashok often took a pay cut so he could travel with his young son to tournaments, and the family always kept one bag packed and ready at home for the next trip.

Even a bad trip did not stop them. Anuj had just returned from a disappointing tournament in Malaysia when he said he wanted to play in another event in the Philippines. His father could not refuse. “We have never thought about things like bank balance,” Ashok said.

That trip to the Philippines ended with the Grandmaster title.

What is a Grandmaster?

Grandmaster, or GM, is the highest title a chess player can earn. It is awarded by FIDE, the International Chess Federation, and it marks a player as one of the best in the world.

The usual route is demanding. A player must score three Grandmaster “norms” — exceptionally strong results in high-level tournaments, across at least 27 games — and reach a FIDE rating of 2,500. Only a small number of players in the world ever manage it.

Some tournaments, like the ASEAN Plus championship Shrivatri won, offer a direct route to the title under special conditions approved by FIDE. Winning the event outright earned him the Grandmaster title on the spot.

To put the achievement in perspective: there are nearly 200 countries in the world, but only a handful have 100 Grandmasters. India has now joined that very small club.

India’s chess boom

Shrivatri’s milestone is the latest chapter in one of the great sporting stories of recent years: the rise of Indian chess.

When Anand became India’s first Grandmaster in 1988, he was a lone star. He went on to become a five-time world champion and inspired a generation. Today, India has a deep bench of young talent. D. Gukesh became world champion in 2024, and players like R. Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi regularly compete against the best in the world.

The pace of growth has been remarkable. India added its five most recent Grandmasters between July and November 2026 alone. The 99th, V. S. Rathanvel, earned the title in July 2026. Four months later, Shrivatri made it 100.

The All India Chess Federation (AICF) celebrated the milestone. Its president, Nitin Narang, congratulated Shrivatri and described the achievement as a proud moment for Indian chess — and set the next ambition: reaching 200 Grandmasters.

That target may sound bold, but the pipeline behind it is strong. Chess is now played seriously in schools across India, online platforms have made coaching and competition available to children in small towns, and young players can study the games of the world’s best from their phones. Shrivatri’s own journey — from Katni to a Grandmaster title — shows how far that system now reaches.

What happens next for Anuj Shrivatri

The Grandmaster title is a career-defining achievement, but Shrivatri is not stopping there. He has set himself two clear goals: to cross a rating of 2,600, and to win as many tournaments as he can.

There is also practical security on the way. His coach, International Master Akshat Khamparia, spent years encouraging him to apply for a sports-quota job with Indian Railways, which offers talented athletes a stable career alongside their sport. That process has now gone through: Shrivatri’s medical has been completed, and his joining Western Railway is in its final stages.

It is a fitting reward for a player who bet everything on chess. His older brother, who also played the game as a child, drifted away from the board and now works as a software engineer in Bengaluru. Anuj stayed — and the gamble has paid off.

For Madhya Pradesh, the moment matters too. A state that had never produced a Grandmaster now has one, and young players there have a local hero to look up to. For India, the 100th Grandmaster is proof that the chess revolution Anand started nearly four decades ago has become something much bigger: a system that can produce world-class players from towns like Katni, not just from the big cities.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Anuj Shrivatri?

Anuj Shrivatri is a 22-year-old chess player from Katni, Madhya Pradesh. He became India’s 100th Grandmaster on 8 November 2026 after winning the 7th ASEAN Plus Individual Open Chess Championship in the Philippines.

How did he become a Grandmaster?

He won the 7th ASEAN Plus Individual Open Chess Championship in Ozamiz City, Philippines, scoring seven points from nine rounds. Winning the championship earned him the Grandmaster title directly under the tournament’s FIDE-approved conditions.

Why is being the 100th Grandmaster special?

Viswanathan Anand became India’s first Grandmaster in 1988. It took 38 years for the country to reach 100 Grandmasters, and Shrivatri is also the first Grandmaster ever from Madhya Pradesh.

Did he really quit a software job for chess?

Yes. After completing a BTech in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, he worked as a software engineer for a German company and was offered a chance to work from the firm’s base in Germany. He left the job to focus on chess full-time, because reaching the top of the game needs eight to nine hours of training every day.

What is his next goal?

Shrivatri says he wants to cross a rating of 2,600 and win as many tournaments as he can. He is also in the final stages of joining Western Railway through a sports-quota job.

What is a Grandmaster title in chess?

Grandmaster is the highest title awarded by FIDE, the International Chess Federation. Players usually need three Grandmaster norms in top tournaments and a rating of 2,500 to earn it.

Conclusion

Anuj Shrivatri’s journey from a seven-year-old in Katni to India’s 100th Grandmaster is a story about talent, but even more about belief — a family’s belief that a child’s dream was worth every rupee they had, and a young man’s belief that it was worth giving up a safe career.

Indian chess has come a long way since Viswanathan Anand stood alone at the top in 1988. A hundred Grandmasters later, the game belongs to the whole country — including, at last, Madhya Pradesh. And if Shrivatri’s next goals are anything to go by, the story is only just beginning.

Sources

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.

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