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Journalism of Courage
Guntur, April 18: He is cheerful and friendly off the board. But when he sits across the board, he is completely consumed by the game. That’s how the 16-year-old Sandipan Chanda, India’s latest International Master, comes across.
Even as his supporters rejoice in his achievement, Chanda, who completed his final IM norm in the last round of the Chalapathi International Grandmasters Chess Tournament, was probably somewhat disappointed at not being able to make a GM norm. Chanda, currently rated, 2424, was not over-excited at the IM title, said, “I did well initially but faltered in the closing stages of the event. Even though the opposition was tough, I could have done better.”
The Russian Grandmaster and winner of this event Andrey Shariyazdanov calls Chanda a talented player. Another Russian GM Alexander Fominyh was impressed by the boy’s grit when he had his back to the wall. Indian Grandmasters Dibyendu Barua and Pravin Thipsay praise his tactical ability.
So what makes Chanda a formidable and awkward customer? It is a mixture of tactical ability combined with an uncanny knack of keeping the pressure on his opponent till the end. This combined with his resilience and ability to choose off-beat openings that tend to avoid theoretical duels make for a powerful combination.
Kyrgyzstan GM Leonid Yurtaev felt Chanda should improve his end-game skills. There is also another facet of his game which needs to be bettered – opening. The youngster probably does not relish openings and he needs to put more effort into this aspect of his game. The losses with Thipsay, Yurtaev and Shariyazdanov indicated poor opening preparation.
Chanda was trained by Paritosh Bhattacharya when he was young but now he is under the wings of Goodricke Chess Academy which has produced players like Neelotpal Das and Surya Shekhar Ganguly.
Chanda, who is an admirer of Garri Kasparov finds training games with Ganguly and Neelotpal Das very useful. “The training games with Ganguly and Neelotpal Das has really played a big part in my game’s improvement,” reflected Chanda.
Chanda, who is studying 11th standard in an open school in Calcutta to devote more time to chess, aspires to improve his game without having any specific goals. He feels the turning point in his career came when he won a strong open tournament in Mumbai, few years ago. Chanda’s showing in the European tournaments like Andorra, Beleaguer, a few summers ago did him a world of good. He qualified for this year’s National `A’ which is one of the toughest thing to do because of the nature of the selection event – National `B’ which is a rat race.
It was two months ago, Chanda came into prominence with a performance unmatched till now by any Indian youngster at the Goodricke tournament, defeating GM’s like Horvath, Lordachescu and holding legendary GM Victor Korchnoi which certainly irked the Russian. He got a 10 game GM norm and 12 game IM norm for his smashing achievement. He had earlier got his first IM norm in the ’99 Commonwealth Championship at Bikaner.
He has a chance for completing his GM title in the forthcoming National `A’ at Mumbai in May. For the first time, GM norm will be possible in the National `A’ because of the number of GM’s India has now and the average rating of the Nationals will go up.
A GM title will be a just reward for this young lad, who obviously has it in him to go a long way.
