NEW DELHI: Do you remember the feeling of doing your class 10 exam? Very few don’t feel butterflies in their stomach first. For the 98th Grand Master (GM) of India Aswath S, the board exam meant putting chess, his lifelong partner, aside for four months, from the beginning of the year until April, for the sake of what many call the first “big challenge” of academic life. With two GM norms already in his pocket, what the teenager from Chennai needed was just one more GM norm to become a Grandmaster. That moment came on Wednesday, in his first classic tournament of the year.Aswath scored his third and final GM norm at the Pune International GM Round Robin 2026. Taking out FM Kannan Vaidyanathan with the black pieces in the final round, he finished the tournament with 7/9 points, secured the final GM norm and won the coveted title in the process.“It is very amazing to hear that I am a Grand Master now,” Aswath told TimesofIndia.com during an exclusive interaction from Pune. “It had slipped for almost the last two years. I crossed 2500 in December, so after that, I had to score only the norms, but it took me so long.”Aswath secured his first norm by winning the strong Grenke Open A in front of several seasoned Grandmasters.His second came at the first Saturday GM Round Robin in Budapest in December 2025, where he also scored 7/9 and crossed the 2500 FIDE rating mark.
From a family of chess coaches
Aswath’s roots in chess run deep in Tamil Nadu’s Nagercoil, where his father, AC Siva, runs a chess academy as a full-time professional coach.“I started playing chess when I was three, and my coach was my father,” Aswath recalled. “At this age, I had to go to the academy saying the names of the chess pieces. Then I started playing and entered a tournament at four years old.”
Aswath S with his family (Special Arrangements)
The defining moment came early. “At the age of seven, when I played the Tamil Nadu Under-7 State Championship, I won the tournament with a score of 9 out of 9. It was one of the biggest motivations for me to take up chess as a profession,” he admitted.With his mother, Sheela, a novice teacher at the academy and his older sister who once competed in the sport, chess was already woven into the fabric of the family.
The road to becoming a Grand Master
Despite his initial promise, the road to the title of GM was riddled with many obstacles. Aswath found that playing locally was a double-edged sword.“Mainly, exposure to the tournament was a challenge because we generally didn’t get to play such big events in India in the previous times,” explained Aswath. “And, in India, the lower ratings are very underestimated because they are so strong, stronger than their ratings. If we go abroad, we can increase the rating points quite easily, but of course, the money comes as a big thing. We need sponsors.”Aswath’s development shifted gears when he started working with IM Senthil Maran after the pandemic, and later with his current coach, GM Shyam Sundar, at the end of 2023.“He is a very hardworking boy, a very responsible partner, passionate, determined, and has no social media distractions,” Sundar told this website.“Sches-wise, he obeys everything I say. There are many things he likes to do, such as working on certain openings in depth. But when I say that it is not necessary for his level, he asks for the reasoning and accepts. Listening to the point is very important.”With the teenager’s GM title marking a milestone for the coach as Aswath became the sixth of his students to achieve the feat, Shyam reveals the mantra.“I created a culture where guys at similar levels actually share materials. Aswath is in it,” he added. “It’s a very healthy bond. He also focuses well on his fitness. He does gym activities at home and is open to playing any sport.”
Beyond the 64 squares
Despite his monumental success, Aswath remains incredibly grounded, in part because of his academic commitments. A student of Velammal School in Chennai, he is currently pursuing commerce in his 11th grade.“This was my first classic tournament this year because I had to study for my 10 board exams,” I noted. “Four months, from January to April, I did not see chess.
Aswath S at Pune International GM Round Robin 2026 (Special Arrangements)
Now that the tables have been cleared and the GM title secured, Aswath’s eyes are firmly on the future. India’s 98th Grandmaster knows that the sought-after title is no more than a checkpoint.“GM is just a beginning of the real world of chess, actually, to be frank,” Aswath concluded. “There is a lot more to go, like 2600, 2700, the top world ranking. My short-term goal would be 2600.”