Inside the making of R Vaishali

Vaishali said nothing. For an hour, she just sat there. Calculating.

The suggestions around her were wrong. Through it all, she remained silent — working through the position in her head. And then, she solved it. Not necessarily the full line, Svidler admitted, but enough to leave no doubt.

What struck him wasn’t just that she solved it. It was what it took. “I don’t have that ability,” he said. “It’s completely alien to me — to just sit there and calculate for as long as it takes.”

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The seven-year-old monk

The more people you speak to about Vaishali, the more varied facets of her game emerge. But one quality keeps resurfacing: her ability to stay still and work through a problem until it yields.

Years before she made Svidler’s jaw drop, S Thyagarajan had spotted the same trait in a seven-year-old at Chennai’s Bloom Chess Academy — where she had been sent, in part, to be weaned off cartoon shows on TV. While other children her age were bundles of kinetic energy, she was different — like a seven-year-old monk.

“She could sit still for hours at a stretch. That was very special. She could stay patient for five hours — or even more if needed — at the board when she was just seven. At that age, this is not common,” Thyagarajan once told The Indian Express.

Those early sessions didn’t just instill discipline. They laid the first foundations of her game — including the aggression that would later define her.

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Aggression and calculation

At the Candidates, Vaishali produced one of the most startling moments of the tournament — sacrificing both her rooks against Divya Deshmukh. It was a flash of pure aggression — the kind that can turn games on their head and draw admiration from peers, including her brother.

Praggnanandhaa would once admit that his akka’s attacking instinct is something he wishes he had more of. If patience was innate, and aggression was shaped early, her calculation was sharpened under R B Ramesh at Chess Gurukul.

Ramesh’s training methods were exacting. He would set up a position on the board — and then the pieces would stay transfixed on the same squares. All movement was purely in the mind as students was made to calculate purely through visualisation. Moves deep into a game, with no physical reference — everything had to be held and resolved in the mind.

Vaishali Rameshbabu meets her mother Nagalakshmi after winning the Women’s Candidates tournament. (Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE)

“We would be past move 15 but still have the pieces in the same original position on the board,” Praggnanandhaa had explained. “It was not just about visualisation, but also about finding good moves.”

Those drills now surface in the moments that matter most — when positions grow complicated and calculation becomes the only way through.

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Relentless dedication

The routine was unforgiving. A one-and-a-half-hour commute each way to Chess Gurukul on their father’s two-wheeler — even through heavy rain — followed by four straight hours of training.

Most children took breaks. Vaishali and Praggnanandhaa didn’t.

While others paused, they played blitz — game after game. “Right from the start… they would travel nearly one and a half hours daily just to get to my academy. No matter what,” Ramesh once recalled. “And after four hours of non-stop chess, when others took breaks, they would start playing blitz.”

Vaishali is the second Indian woman to earn a spot at the prestigious World Championship, following in the heels of Koneru Humpy — who challenged Hou Yifan for the women’s crown at Albania’s Tirana 15 years ago in 2011. (Photo Credit: Michal Walusza/FIDE)

What stood out wasn’t just the effort. It was the appetite. They never seemed to tire of it.

“They never got bored of chess,” said Ramesh.

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The Anand years

When five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand launched the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy after the pandemic, Vaishali was the only female prodigy selected in the first cohort that included some of India’s brightest young players.

Over time, Anand came to recognise what truly set her apart: Her tactical sharpness. Her calculation. And her ability to endure — to stay composed and find resources in difficult positions.

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The comeback

And yet, over the last two years, almost nothing seemed to go right. Results dipped. Ratings fell. She entered the Candidates as the lowest-rated player in the field. But, behind the scenes, the grind never stopped. There was no dramatic reset. Just the same habits — patience, calculation, work.

And then, it clicked. She didn’t just compete at the Candidates. She won the whole thing.

A girl who, at seven, could sit still for hours until a problem yielded has carried that same stillness all the way to the top. And now, it has brought her here, and earned her a seat at the World Championship.