'India's Got Latent' Gambit? Behind Vantika Agrawal's double bronze at the Chess Olympiad

Vantika Agarwal opens up on Chess Olympiad and more NEW DELHI: As usual, the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan had only one rest day, after the 6th round. As a result, India’s Vantika Agrawal, who defeated American chess legend Irina Krush in a sixth-round match on Board 3, finished three days later than scheduled for two more days away from the board. captained by Swayams Mishra, against Germany and Kazakhstan.Too much chess preparation in the first two days made Vantika look for an escape in the third. Samaya Raina’s popular show ‘India’s Got Latent’ came to her rescue. On her third day off, she watched the latest episodes with gusto, then returned to the deck the next day and secured victory over Uzbekistan’s Nilufarkhon Imomkuzieva in her 9th round match.“Usually I don’t watch much because you don’t have time. In the morning you prepare, then at night you check your opponents and discuss, then in the morning you prepare again. In the afternoon you have a match and you are tired. But this time, with a rest day and two more days off, I had a lot of time and I thought that I have already practiced a little; Let me rest a little in India.” episodes,” she told TimesofIndia.com.There was no hesitation when asked if she enjoyed it. “Yes, of course,” she added. “Also, I watched the earlier episodes and then the new one. It’s nice. You just get some rest.”Vantika ended her campaign with 6/8, five wins to her name and an individual bronze medal in the Indian women’s bronze campaign. It’s the quieter of India’s two medal stories from this Olympics, and probably the more interesting one to hear from the inside.“I think it was good,” she said of the overall experience. “I mean of course I won the double gold last time. So this time we went for the gold and it didn’t go as planned. We lost to Poland at the start. It wasn’t as smooth as last year. But I’m glad we won a lot of games and had a comeback and managed to finish on the podium; after a setback we managed to come back and that was really important.”

The one that got away

If there is one result that Vantika would look back on with some disappointment, it is the Round 10 draw against China that effectively ended India’s gold medal hopes. The 24-year-old lost her match to Lu Miaoyi on board 3, with the team tied 2-2.“I was especially upset about my game against China,” admitted the International Master (IM). “I think I played pretty well and it was a lot of draws after 40 moves. There were a lot of ways to make a draw. But somehow at that point I was playing to win. I knew my position wasn’t better, but I decided to play to win. I made some stupid decisions because of that.”Part of the problem, she explained, was not knowing the full picture elsewhere. “At that point it wasn’t clear if we were going to win on the fourth board or if I would just go for a draw. I wasn’t sure what was happening on that board and I thought I was going to play for the win,” she recalled.

Vantika Agrawal (right) during the match against China (photo by Rafal Oleksiewicz for FIDE)

“Apart from my loss to China, I think it was pretty good. I was 5.5 out of 6 before that. I won almost every match. If it wasn’t for that loss, I would have been on the board for individual gold.”“I won against Krush. Then, after three days of rest, I won against an Uzbek player, also quite strong. So I think it was good, except for one match that I was not happy with.”Shaking off the bad result, she said, resulted in some pretty simple discipline, adding: “I think it was just focusing on the next game and not thinking about what’s already happened.”

A team built for challenges

Vantika praised the dressing room and specifically Mishra for how the team absorbed the Polish loss and kept pushing.“Everyone was very nice. Humpy (Koneru) played so well on the board, Divya (Deshmukh), Savitha (Shri). They all played well. I think you can see that we all got individual medals on our board in the end,” she remarked.“We were kind of prepared for that because we also lost to Poland last year and had that blackout. So we were prepared that if something went wrong, we would come together and fight as a team.”

Vantika Agrawal against American chess legend Irina Krush (FIDE photo)

The same sincerity extended to the one selection issue hanging over the campaign, which was Vaishali Rameshbabu’s slump in form which saw her slip into the final rounds.“She is so strong that she won the candidates and is now a challenger for the World Cup. If she was in her full form, we would easily crush everyone. The little chances that other teams got, like Poland, I don’t think they would get — we would win on all boards,” Vantika said.When asked if the team persists in these swings and mistakes while they are actually happening, Vantika made it clear that they don’t on purpose.“I think we don’t think about it too much. Everyone just tries to focus on their game and our coach decides who plays and who doesn’t so that everything goes well. We don’t think about these things that much,” she added.“We crushed everybody last time. We were 7-for-7, we won every game, we didn’t give anybody a chance. It wasn’t the same this time, even though we went with our best team. So the hardest part was accepting that every time you can’t win gold, you can’t crush everybody. That happens. That acceptance. That was hard.”

IM is trying to make a mark in the elite circuit

When asked why she was less visible on the elite circuit, Vantika Agrawal, already an Arjuna awardee, was quick to dismiss the impression that her year was a quiet one outside the Olympics bubble.“I am not invited to these top tournaments where the other girls, Humpy, Vaishali, Divya are playing,” she told the website. “But it’s not that I’m not active. I play a lot of open tournaments and I’d say I’m more active than them. If you look at my profile, I’ve played more games than any of them. I just don’t play in the tournaments that everyone covers.”“My rating is a bit low and it’s not easy to raise it – even if I’m playing very well, I’ll get maybe five or seven rating points. It’s not easy to reach that level and only once you reach it will you be invited to these tournaments,” she further noted.

Vantika Agrawal at the Chess Olympiad (FIDE photo)

“I beat Song Yuxin this year; she was playing second board for China in an open tournament. I also beat Aditya Mittal, who is over 2600 and hadn’t lost a match all year before that – she just lost to me.”There was frustration in the way she remembered one particular near-miss.“In January’s Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz, I shared first place in the Blitz, I tied with Carissa Yip. But no one covered that. It’s just not covered,” she added with some disappointment.Whatever the gap in coverage, Vantika insists it hasn’t dented her own sense of where she stands and what she’s aiming for – the title of Grandmaster (GM).“I already feel confident and I’m working non-stop. Not much has changed after this Olympics. I just want to focus on my goals and not think too much about all that,” she added. “I will continue to play more tournaments and try to improve my skills and level.”

Life after the board and the year 2027

Looking ahead to 2027, her plan is more of a continuation than a rebirth. “I think I’m going to do the same, play these open tournaments and try to get my ranking up and see how it goes,” she admitted.ALSO READ: ‘There are sometimes just dead spots in chess’: Nihal Sarin looks back on his Chess Olympiad loss to Uzbekistan | ExclusiveMeanwhile, her studies are largely settled. “I completed my B.Com Honours. I was at SRCC College, Delhi University. After that I focused more on chess because I had exams in December which clashed with tournaments I really wanted to play. I’m fully focused on chess at the moment, but I’ll keep the option open; I’ll do a Masters or an MBA if I want to.”