Bakre scripts a silent coup

In the National junior this year at Kozhikode, Bakre fared poorly and was placed ninth. But anyway, he had a direct seeding to the Asian junior as he was the Asian sub-junior (under-16) champion in Mumbai last year. It is quite interesting to note that Bakre has only won one Indian national title (under-18) at Moga (Punjab) lastyear) as against his two international titles within the space of six months. Bakre tied for the first place in the national sub-junior at Sivakasi in 1996 and came second behind Maheshchandran. It was this performance that opened the door for him to the Asian sub-junior in Mumbai.

"The turning point was my eighth round game against Amanatov Farruh (Tajkistan)," said Bakre, who completed 17 during this event. "I was down and out in that game but somehow I managed to hang on and win." Bakre learned chess at 10 from his father Ravindra Bakre, who is a leading psychiatrist in Ahmedabad. Though he has been the Gujarat State sub-junior champion from 1991 to 1997, Bakre was never in the top three of any nationals till 1996 when he first gained a place in the Indian team. In between, he got into the prize list at Palakkad by finishing fifth in the Under-12 national in 1993. "Since then, I was always on the prize list in all nationals," Bakre recollected.

Bakre was fifth in the National (under-25) championshiplast year at Muzzafarpur in 1996 and fourth in the National Junior at Thrissur last year. The world (under-25) event in Argentina was a team event and Bakre was picked to play for India. "I scored seven points from nine games and was second to GM Hugo Spangenberg of Argentina who scored 7.5. Sadly, we had only two players while we gave walk-overs on the bottom boards," said Bakre.

Bakre is also a club-level tennis player for Ellisbridge Gymkhana in Ahmedabad. His mother Kamini Bakre is a computer programmer and for sometime he had a computer to work with. "But that was the 386 system which is outdated," said Bakre who added he needed a laptop to further his career. IMs Sekhar Sahu and Raja Ravisekhar gave coaching classes to Bakre during the period 1993-95 but since then he is on his own.