Chess: Prithu Gupta becomes India's 64th Grandmaster
India have a new Grandmaster, 15-year-old Prithu Gupta. The promising teenager became the 64th Grandmaster after crossing the Elo threshold of 2,500 points. Gupta beat IM Lev Yankelevich in the fifth round of the Portuguese League 2019. He has achieved the sensational feat at the age of 15 years, 4 months and 10 days. Here is more about the newest Grandmaster.
Prithu is the sixth Indian to become a Grandmaster in 2019. He had started playing chess at the age of nine. This achievement comes 31 years after India got its first Grandmaster, Viswanathan Anand. Gupta got his first GM norm at the Gibraltar Masters in 2018, the second one at the Biel Masters and the final one at the Porticcio Open in 2019.
And we are complete. 64 th GM !!
— Viswanathan Anand (@vishy64theking) July 19, 2019
Welcome our newest GM Prithu Gupta !
Thank you Anand sir .. You have always been the biggest inspiration. https://t.co/QLOtygPvdG
— Prithu Gupta (@PrithuGupta1) July 19, 2019
Meanwhile, D Gukesh is India's youngest GM at 12 years, 7 months and 17 days. He achieved the feat in January this year. Notably, he is also the second youngest person in history to achieve the title of Grandmaster, which FIDE awarded him in March.
Prithu became an IM, at the Gibraltar Masters last year. In the same event, he also scored a GM norm. The second one as at the Biel Masters where he beat his first opponent above 2,600 Elo- GM Evgeny Romanov. His two other events last year were the Llucmajor Open, Portugese League and Isle of Man Masters 2018.
Apart from chess, Prithu has been excelling in academics as well. He studies in the tenth grade at Modern School, Vasant Vihar in Delhi. As per reports, he has managed to maintain a CGPA of 10 in academics. Spanish is a language which Prithu is passionate about. It helps him communicate when playing tournaments in Western Europe in particular.
