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Indian wins US U-16 chess title

The joint winner of the US Under-16 chess championship is an Indian. Vinay Bhatt, 13, of California.

In the seven-round tournament, Bhatt led the field with five points, sharing joint first with the New York based Dmitri Schneider. Schneider was given first ranking on the tie break, but he will share the title, and the trophy, with Bhatt as co-champions.

The win merely underlines an emerging trend, with India throwing up an array of promising young players who increasingly look capable of taking the torch from Vishwanathan Anand and running with it.

This surge of young talent can be traced back to three factors. The first was the institution of the Children's Nationals, on an age group basis, in 1988. The second was Vishwanathan Anand's emergence on the world stage, as the most popular player, thus giving the younger ones a role model to look up to and seek to emulate. And the third, and most recent, has been the emergence of the Internet, which makes games played in the remote corners of the world instantly available to young chess players for study and analysis.

Add to that the emergence of top quality chess software, permitting rising players to play against computers and hone their game, while expanding their own knowledge of classic game theory.

The first sign of a resurgence in Indian chess came in 1996, when P Harikrishna, then all of ten years old, won the World Junior Championship and, a month later, took second place in the Under-12 rapid chess championship in Paris.

Emerging around the same time was K Sashikaran, who hit the headlines with a medal in the Asian sub-juniors before going on to do very well in the World Under-18 championships in 1995. An international master at 16, the Chennai-based Shashi is now a full-fledged performer on the senior circuit.

Joining him on the main circuit is Surya Shekhar Ganguly, the youngest ever player to defeat a Grandmaster -- a feat he accomplished in 1995, at the age of 11. A product of the Goodricke Chess Academy in Calcutta, Ganguly is rated the most attacking young player in India.

With the likes of Saravanan, Konguvel and Neelotpal Das, all currently on the senior tour and performing prodigies in turn, what this gives Indian chess is a platform, for the anticipated snowball effect. The basic thinking, among experts, is that with superlative youngsters vying with each other, not only do domestic standards go up, but more young players are tempted to take to the game.