Vaishali R from Chennai has become the latest Woman Grandmaster (WGM) from India. The sister of the world’s second-youngest Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa, Vaishali secured her third and final WGM norm at the Riga Technical University Open in Latvia, where she bagged five points from her nine rounds.
She drew her last match with Russian International Master Ilya Duzhakov, earning 30 rating points for her performances in the tournament. She ranked 71st in the final tournament tally.
The 17-year-old is also India’s highest-ranked woman chess player under the age of 18 and the 17th overall in her age category. With her live rating at 2,324 points, she is expected to climb the ranks. Vaishali became a Woman International Master (WIM) in 2016.
In 2017, Vaishali R had won the Asia Blitz Chess Championships in Chengdu, China. She clinched the gold medal with eight points from nine games, ahead of Iran’s Sarasdat Khademalsharieh and compatriot Padmini Rout.
At 14, Vaishali had shocked the Indian chess community when she won the 42nd National Women Challengers Chess Championships held in Bhayandar, Mumbai, with nine points from 11 games. The 104-woman strong field included the likes of Tania Sachdeva, Mary Ann Gomes and Nisha Mohota, the latter of whom she defeated.
Her under-12 world title in Maribor in 2012 and the under-14 title at Porto Carras, Greece, in 2015 puts her in an exclusive list of Indians to have won more than one age-group world chess title. The only other Indians to do this are Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, M Mahalakshmi, Murali Karthikeyan, Divya Deshmukh and Vaishali’s brother R Praggnanandha.
Praggnanandha, who became the second youngest GM of all time in June, and Vaishali both train at the Chess Gurukul academy in Chennai under GM RB Ramesh. Vaishali was initially enrolled in Chess Gurukul, because she used to watch the Pogo children’s television channel a lot and her parents wanted her to have a distraction, according to brother Praggnanandhaa, who was also enrolled.