New Delhi: Imagine your very first international chess tournament. Your parents have dug into their pockets to take you to the beautiful country of Uzbekistan. There, you have to play the toughest opponents from around the world. You reach the venue, and you sit down at the gaming table. But as soon as the game starts, your vision becomes blurred, you can barely see the 64 squares in front of you. Totally annoying, isn’t it?Shobhi Gupta, the girls’ world No. 4 and India’s No. 1 earlier this month, was just 15 when she had to undergo a similar ordeal in March last year. It is difficult to understand what he must have felt at that moment. “This was his first personal international tournament outside India. Earlier, she has traveled to Sri Lanka, Georgia and other countries, but these trips were because she qualified for official events like the World Championships. Uzbekistan was his first independent international tournament,” Shubhi’s father Pradeep told TimesofIndia.com during an exclusive interaction.“She could barely see the board properly because we accidentally put in eye drops. The medical store gave us a 1% solution instead of 0.1%; it was 100 times stronger than what we normally use. It completely affected her vision, making everything blurry for seven to eight days. As a result, she couldn’t see clearly at her first tournament in Uzbekistan in March because she just couldn’t see the board.”Just last month, the same Shobhi Gupta went to play in Germany, competed in two strong IM tournaments there and earned an impressive 184 rating points to climb 37 places to become world No. 4 in the FIDE girls’ ranking list, which includes only female players aged 20 and under.Although his rise appears to have been swift, it certainly wasn’t without its hiccups.
School fun soon becomes a lockdown grind.
Shobhi, now 16, was introduced to chess at the age of eight as a simple hobby class in her school’s chess club. After winning third place in an inter-school competition, his interest piqued, prompting his father to enroll him in a weekend academy.In 2019, barely six months into serious play, he competed in his first major event, the Under-9 National Championship in Ahmedabad. He finished an impressive 10th place, opening with his initial FIDE rating of 1070.Then, the pandemic struck. For most kids, lockdown meant screen addiction, but for this Ghaziabad-based Wizkid, chess became his only friend in solitude. In 2020, with his rating still sitting at a paltry 1095, his family approached Delhi-based coach Parson Jeet Dutta.“She was totally immersed in chess all the time,” Dutta told the website, recalling those old days with a smile. “Any study material I gave him, he worked on it immediately. His fundamentals were missing in the beginning, so we worked incredibly hard on them. I was just waiting for God’s timing, thinking, ‘When will the lockdown end? When will the over-the-board tournaments come back?'”
All Gupta Parson Jeet Dutta (right) and Bharat Singh Chauhan (left) (Special Arrangements)
During the lockdown, Shabi dominated the online circuit, winning gold at the National School U-11 Championship, bronze at the 2021 National U-14, and individual and team gold at the Western Asian U-12 Championship.Since he was a new face tearing through online tournaments, skepticism led to speculation about fair play. But Dutta knew it was pure hard work.
Ghaziabad’s rise to glory
When the over-the-board tournament returned in 2022, Shubhi silenced the rest of the doubters. He won the National Amateur Championship (under 2000 category) and followed that up with a gold medal at the National Under-12 Championship at Mandya near Bangalore.Indian chess infrastructure and prodigy have traditionally been concentrated in the south. By bringing the national trophy to Ghaziabad, Shobhi marked a rare breakthrough for North India, and Uttar Pradesh in particular, in junior chess.“It was the first time a national title came back to North India,” Pradeep said. “It was a huge success that lifted everyone’s spirits.”The national title qualified him for the 2022 World Cadet Championships in Batumi, Georgia. There, representing India against athletes from more than 70 countries, Shobhi won the gold medal to become the world champion.
All the Guptas on the Wall of Prasanjit Dutta’s Academy (Special Arrangements)
“It was always my dream to have a student become a world champion,” Dutta said. “I stayed up all night watching his games live. His movements were coming in with about 98-99% accuracy. Top engine recommendation, this is what he played. For a player at that age to play virtually error-free indicates a huge leap in strength.”
Faith of believers
There is no denying that chess at the elite level is an expensive proposition. Father Pradeep works in IT to finance the trip. Shobhi’s mother, Urmila, who initially did not know a single rule of the game, has gradually transformed herself into her daughter’s full-time training partner, analyst, and travel companion.With Shobhi’s elder brother completing his final year of engineering, the family sees playing chess as a bonding activity. If someone is free, they prefer to move a piece or two up the board. Shobhi and her mother, however, spend about 80 percent of their time away from home traveling for events.
All the Guptas with their mother Urmila (Special Arrangements)
Sponsors have come forward to support Shubhi’s talent, taking a part of the financial burden off the family’s shoulders. This support has allowed the youngster to train under high-profile grandmasters, including GM Swapnel Dhupde and GM Srinath Narayanan.“They had a lot of faith in him,” notes Pradeep. “Srinath sir was particularly keen to push him to play international open tournaments abroad as domestic opportunities at his level may be limited.”
The art of rearranging
Late last year, the 16-year-old suffered a severe mental setback at the National Women’s Championship in Gurgaon. He played brilliantly and led the field until the final stretch, before the pressure got to him.She lost the last two rounds and ended up in a heartbreaking fourth place. He bagged a prize money of Rs 3.5 lakh, but that didn’t bring any relief. The lost national title sent him into a depression.“When things went wrong at the end, everyone was upset,” admits Pradeep. “But we were also growing as parents. We used to scold him badly after a loss, but we learned to handle it better. We told him this time, ‘It’s just a game.’ This is not the last tournament.Yet the tenacity shown by Shobhi in fighting this mental hurdle was admirable.She moved away from chess altogether, turning to mandala art, sketching and films. The mental break worked. A few days later, he traveled to Jodhpur for the National Under-19 Championship and won the title, completely erasing the ghost of Gurgaon.Outside the board, Shubhi has shown the same clinical focus in her academics, deftly balancing late-night tournament preparations with the intense pressure of acing her Class 10 board exams. “He mostly prepared through YouTube, talking to teachers, and studying on his own. In just one-and-a-half months of preparation, he scored 96%,” revealed his father.
A new beginning
After returning to Uzbekistan to clear her third Women’s International Master (WIM) standard in March this year, Shubhi and her mother traveled to Munich, Germany in May.In two back-to-back, grueling international tournaments, Shobhi achieved an extraordinary double at Women’s Grand Master (WGM) standard in the first event, followed immediately by full International Master (IM) standard in the second.Also read: Exclusive interview with R Praganandha: ‘Winning ahead of Magnus Carlsen is something I’ve always wanted’This performance catapulted her to India’s No. 1 spot in the girls’ division. Remarkably, despite thorough scrutiny of all requirements, the family has chosen not to officially claim the lesser WIM title.“We didn’t claim the WIM title,” reveals Pradeep. “Her dream doesn’t stop there. She’s directly aiming for the WGM, IM, and eventually Absolute Grandmaster (GM) titles. Her determination to reach the top of the world ranks is incredibly high right now.”
