Short read: Viswanathan Anand is creating an Academy of Grandmasters

“The project came about serendipitously, says Sandeep Singhal, the co-founder and managing partner of investment firm WestBridge Capital, which has over $7 billion in assets under management.

When Anand, invited to talk to their investors pre-pandemic, was leaving the meeting, Singhal asked if they could contribute to chess. Anand said he would think about it and when he got back to Singhal, it was with the idea for WACA.

Anand had some inspiration from the Russian grandmaster Mikhail Botvinnik, whose influence in structuring chess as a sport in the erstwhile Soviet Union created a generation of superstars, including Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. The Samford Fellowship in the US, given to promising players for the last four decades, was the other motivation; so WACA decided to combine the two.

The academy launched in late 2020, delayed due to the pandemic, as a fully online collective with the aim of selecting the most promising youngsters (rather than them applying for it). “The idea was to help them jump from being a youngster with a lot of promise or from being one of the best juniors in the world, to being one of the best players in the world,” says Anand, the WACA co-founder with Singhal.

Five players, Nihal Sarin, R Praggnanandhaa, D. Gukesh, Raunak Sadhwani—all aged 14-16 then—and R. Vaishali, were part of the first batch, with Leon Mendonca joining in later. Most had become grandmasters in their early teens, except Vaishali, who was among the top women players in India. About 17 players varyingly use WACA’s services today.

Mentors like grandmasters Sandipan Chanda, Grzegorz Gajewski, Artur Yusupov and Boris Gelfand provide essential tips to the players, who were too advanced to need basic coaching. WACA consciously fitted into the players’ existing set-ups, adding an extra layer of expertise using Anand’s experience.

Gukesh was one of the players who made considerable progress. In the FIDE Chess Olympiad in 2022 in Chennai, he famously won eight out of eight games, including a win over Fabiano Caruana, currently the world’s second-highest rated player. Invitations for strong tournaments followed and Gukesh needed a team. Anand’s friend and former training partner Gajewski agreed to jump onboard, which helped the teenager two years later to qualify for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2024 by winning the Candidates tournament in April.

…While the two WACA founders considered a physical space for the academy, it became clear soon enough that such a place was redundant. Since all the players were scattered across India and the coaches across the world, it was not practical to arrange meetings. Anand connects with the coaches to discuss the players’ progression, and in sharing his experience. “I am, obviously, sort of the public face of Indian chess, at least for a long time. I definitely see myself as a mentor though I’m not directly involved in coaching,” Anand adds.

Singhal, whose firm has committed ₹20-25 crore to the project with $1.5-2 million set aside for sponsorships including that of Gukesh, adds about Anand: “He’s got this great gift of saying the right words in the right way with a dry sense of humour. He knows when to step in a bit, when to step back. You can’t expect that from people who are at the top of their game. It’s hard for them to step down and help the next lot with that kind of meticulousness. His sharing of Gajewski with Gukesh is actually a perfect philanthropic gift.”