Cattolica Chess 2022: Telangana’s Rahul Srivatshav achieves GM title

Hyderabad: Telangana’s Rahul Srivatshav became the latest from the State to achieve the Grandmaster title, becoming the 74th Indian to do so.

The 19-year-old broke the 25,00 Elo rating points after drawing his 8th round game against Grandmaster Levan Pantsulaia during the 9th Cattolica Chess Festival 2022 in Italy.

Rahul now is the fourth GM from the state. Arjun Erigaisi was the first to achieve the title from the State. Harsha Bharat Koti and Raja Rithvik are the other two GMs from the State.

He achieved International Master in January 2018 and got his first Gm norm in August 2019. In December the same year, he achieved his 2nd GM norm at Serbia and the third in the same month in Italy. He also got his fourth and fifth GM norms in US Masters and Cattolica Italy respectively.

Srivatshav had already secured five GM norms and achieved the title when he crossed the rating threshold of 2500 on Friday. “India one more step closer to getting 100 Grandmasters! Meet our newest addition to the elite club, 19-year-old Rahul Srivatshav from Telangana, India’s 74th Grandmaster! A big congratulations to Rahul, his coach and family!,” All India Chess Federation president Sanjay Kapoor tweeted on Saturday.

Bharath Subramaniyam had become the country’s 73rd GM in January. The legendary Viswanathan Anand is India’s first GM, which he became way back in 1988.