Krishnan Sasikiran (

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

: கிருஷ்ணன் சசிகிரண்; born 7 January 1981) is an Indian

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

grandmaster. He was one of

Viswanathan Anand Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand (born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster and a former five-time World Chess Champion. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988, and is one of the few players to have surpassed an Elo rating of ...

second The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...

s in the

World Chess Championship 2013 The World Chess Championship 2013 was a match between reigning world champion Viswanathan Anand and challenger Magnus Carlsen, to determine the 2013 World Chess Champion. It was held from 7 to 25 November 2013 in Chennai, India, under the auspic ...

Chess career

Born in

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, Sasikiran won the

Indian Chess Championship The National Premier Chess Championship is the annual national chess championship of India. It was established in 1955 by the Andhra State Chess Association as a biannual event, but since 1971 it has been played yearly. The first edition was held i ...

for the first time in 1999 and won it again in 2002, 2003 and 2013. In 1999 he also won the

Asian Junior Chess Championship The Asian Junior Chess Championship is an annual chess tournament open to players in Asia and Oceania ( FIDE Zones 3.1 to 3.7) who are under 20 years of age. The tournament has been held annually since 1977 with occasional interruptions. Since 198 ...

Vũng Tàu Vũng Tàu (''Hanoi accent:'' , ''Saigon accent:'' ) is the largest city of Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu province in southern Vietnam. The city area is , consists of 13 urban wards and one commune of Long Sơn Islet. Vũng Tàu was the capital of the pr ...

, Vietnam. Sasikiran completed the requirements for the Grandmaster title at the 2000 Commonwealth Championship. In 2001, he won the prestigious Hastings International Chess tournament. In 2003, he won the 4th Asian Individual Championship as well as the Politiken Cup in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

. Sasikiran tied with

Jan Timman Jan Timman (born 14 December 1951) is a Dutch chess grandmaster who was one of the world's leading chess players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career, he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known as ...

for first place in the 2005 Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament, which took place in

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

and Copenhagen. In 2006, he tied for first place at the

Aeroflot Open The Aeroflot Open is an annual open chess tournament played in Moscow and sponsored by the airline Aeroflot. It was established in 2002 and quickly grew to be the strongest open tournament; in 2013 it was converted to a rapid and blitz event, whil ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

with

Baadur Jobava Baadur Jobava ( ka, ბაადურ ჯობავა; born 26 November 1983) is a Georgian chess grandmaster and three-time Georgian champion (2003, 2007, 2012). He competed in the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2004 and in the FIDE Wor ...

Victor Bologan Victor (Viorel) Bologan (born 14 December 1971) is a Moldovan chess player and author. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1991. Career Bologan won the first two editions of the Poikovsky Karpov International Tournament, in 200 ...

and

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov Shahriyar Hamid oghlu Mammadyarov ( az, Şəhriyar Həmid oğlu Məmmədyarov; born 12 April 1985), known internationally as Shakhriyar Mamedyarov , is an Azerbaijani chess grandmaster. he is ranked No. 1 in Azerbaijan and No. 13 in the world. ...

, finishing third on tiebreak score. Later in the same year, Sasikiran won a gold medal in the

2006 Asian Games 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

' team event.

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...

government presented a cheque of Rs 20 Lakhs as appreciation for his success. He was also bestowed with the

Arjuna Award The Arjuna Award, officially known as Arjuna Awards for Outstanding Performance in Sports and Games, is the second-highest sporting honour of India, the highest being the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. The award is named after Arjuna, one ...

in 2002. In the January 2007

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

rating list, Sasikiran was ranked number 21 in the world with an

Elo rating The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor. The Elo system was invented as an improved ch ...

of 2700.Topalov still tops the list, Anand four points behind
ChessBase. He became only the second chess player from India to reach Elo rating of 2700.It's a dream come true for Sasikiran

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...

. In December 2008, he won City of

Pamplona Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region. Lying at near above ...

international chess tournament, a category 16 event with average Elo above 2640, by one-point margin with a rating performance of 2795. Sasikiran triumphs
The Hindu. In 2009, he tied for 2nd-3rd with

Étienne Bacrot Étienne Bacrot (; born 22 January 1983) is a French chess grandmaster, and as a child, a chess prodigy. He competed at the Candidates Matches in 2007 and won the Aeroflot Open in 2009. He passed 2700 FIDE rating in 2004 and in January 2005 ...

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

. In May 2011, Sasikiran won the Asian

Blitz Chess Fast chess, also known as Speed chess, is a type of chess in which each player is given less time to consider their moves than normal tournament time controls allow. Fast chess is subdivided, by decreasing time controls, into rapid chess, blitz ...

Championship in

Mashhad Mashhad ( fa, مشهد, Mašhad ), also spelled Mashad, is the List of Iranian cities by population, second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. It serves as the capital of R ...

on tiebreak over

Wesley So Wesley Barbossa So (born October 9, 1993) is a Filipino and American chess grandmaster and 3-time U.S. Chess Champion (in 2017, 2020, and 2021). He is also a three-time Philippine Chess Champion. On the March 2017 FIDE rating list, he was ran ...

and

Bu Xiangzhi Bu Xiangzhi (; born December 10, 1985) is a Chinese chess player. In 1999, he became the 10th grandmaster from China at the age of 13 years, 10 months and 13 days, at the time the youngest in history. In April 2008, Bu and Ni Hua bec ...

, after all three players finished on 7/9 points. In October of the same year, he placed clear first in the open section of the 15th Corsican Circuit. He reached semi-final stage of the Corsica Masters knockout rapid tournament losing to eventual winner Anand. At the 2014 Chess Olympiad in

Tromsø Tromsø (, , ; se, Romsa ; fkv, Tromssa; sv, Tromsö) is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Tromsø (city), city of Tromsø. Tromsø lies ...

he scored 7.5/10 points on board three to help the Indian team to win the bronze medal. Sasikiran also won the individual silver medal on board three.

Correspondence chess

Krishnan Sasikiran is also a very successful

correspondence chess Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, traditionally through the postal system. Today it is usually played through a correspondence chess server, a public internet chess forum, or email. Less common ...

player. In 2015 he achieved the title of an International Master (IM) and in 2016 he became

Senior International Master International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) was founded on 26 March 1951 as a new appearance of the International Correspondence Chess Association (ICCA), which was founded in 1945, as successor of the Internationaler Fernschachbund (I ...

(SIM). Norms for both titles he fulfilled at the ''Marian Vinchev Memorial'' and the ''Palciauskas Invitational''.Sasikiran at ICCF
/ref>

Personal life

Sasikiran completed his education in the Modern Senior Secondary School of

Nanganallur Nanganallur or Nangainallur is one of the southern neighbourhoods of Chennai, India. Since September 2011, it has become a part of Chennai Corporation. It is a residential area close to the Chennai International Airport. In Tamil language, Tami ...

, Chennai. He is married to Radhika and has a daughter.

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sasikiran, Krishnan 1981 births Living people Tamil sportspeople Chess grandmasters Chess Olympiad competitors Indian chess players Recipients of the Arjuna Award Asian Games medalists in chess Chess players at the 2006 Asian Games Chess players at the 2010 Asian Games Asian Games gold medalists for India Asian Games bronze medalists for India Medalists at the 2006 Asian Games Medalists at the 2010 Asian Games