Rejected Chess Job Offer, Now India’s 100th Grandmaster: How Anuj Shrivatri Became Madhya Pradesh’s First GM

Anuj Shrivatri is the 100th CEO of India NEW DELHI: As India prepared to light diyas for Diwali, Anuj Shrivatri was some 3,800 miles away, in a tournament hall in the Philippines, closing out a game that would make him the country’s 100th grandmaster and the first ever produced by his state, Madhya Pradesh.Before this Sunday, India had 99 grandmasters and Madhya Pradesh had none. The tally has now gone up by one thanks to the 22-year-old from Katni who turned down a corporate job offer to chase that very moment.As he prepares to board the plane back home, his last challenge is to suppress the euphoria he feels in his voice.“The feeling now is mostly relief,” Anuj told TimesofIndia.com from the Philippines, barely a day after winning the 7th ASEAN Plus Individual Open Chess Championship to secure the GM title.“I’ve been trying for the GM title for a long time. There have been so many times that my GM standards have been exceeded. At least four or five times I’ve been really close and it’s gone. So now that the title is finally complete, I’m very relieved.”Shrivatri’s parents, Ashok Kumar Shrivatri, a railway teacher, and Manorama Shrivatri, a government school teacher, had experienced each of his near misses by his side, making the event all the more special.“They are very happy. They also know that I have been struggling for a long time. I have been playing well, but sometimes the results just didn’t come. Now that the title is finally complete, they are very happy. And because it happened during Diwali, it is even more joy for them,” he added with a smile.

Father’s hobby, son’s career

Chess entered Shrivatri’s life through her parents’ old college pastime.“My father played chess during college,” he recalled. “He was quite fond of the game, so he introduced me to it when I was little, around five or six years old. Then me and my older brother took a liking to it.”His brother eventually turned away from the board; now working as a software engineer in Bengaluru. Shrivatri does not.From there, he was shaped by a number of coaches. Virendra Tiwari who taught him his very first moves, then Nikhilesh Jain, then Yashpal Arora and finally Rajesh Bahadur, under whose tutelage Shrivatri became an International Champion (IM) in 2019.

MP’s best chess players in Anuj Shrivatri, now GM, IM Akshat Khamparia and IM Ayush Sharma (special arrangement)

After that, he says, it was mostly self-directed work, punctuated by sessions with respected grandmasters like Vishnu Prasanna, Swayams Mishra and Swapnil Dhopade whenever he needed outside eyes on his playing.However, what followed the IM title was not a straight climb.“I was very motivated after 2019, but then came Covid,” he continued. “After that, I wasn’t sure whether to pursue chess as a career or to focus on my studies. At that point, I didn’t feel confident enough about chess and I wasn’t sure about myself, so I decided to focus on my studies.”He studied computer science at Lovely Professional University and it wasn’t until 2025, when I was playing tournaments almost as an afterthought, that something changed.“I felt a change in my game, in my temperament. I thought, no, I should really give chess a go, give it a year or two and try to become a GM,” he recalled.The timing forced a real choice. His college internship ended just as a full-time job offer from the company landed in his inbox.“I was pretty sure at the time that finishing the GM title would be a great thing,” he revealed. “So I left the company and went full-time into chess.

The prize for chasing a dream

The decision to pursue chess full-time came with its challenges. Unsponsored, every trip abroad was out of his own pocket, funded largely by what he earned playing rapid tournaments and coaching.“The biggest struggle was finances, because I was managing everything myself and there was no sponsorship as such. I was making money from rapid tournaments and spending it on foreign trips,” he admitted.This math also explains why it was difficult to get the opportunity to play against elite, 2600+ rated opposition.“Strong players are usually found in very specialized tournaments, a big event in Kazakhstan or a strong open in Qatar. But going there is a very risky decision financially. One tournament can cost around a million rupees just to go and play,” he added.

Become Grandmaster despite losing in the 1st round

In the Philippines, Shrivatri lost a game in the opening round. He feels that what went wrong was his decision to play aggressively as black.“I took too many risks and my position became very uncomfortable. I think it was just a mistake in my opening,” he recalled.

Anuj Shrivatri’s performance at the 7th ASEAN Plus Individual Open Chess Championship

From there, he rebuilt with a complete change of approach.“For the rest of the games, I played very solidly with black. I told myself that I would try to create chances, but when it didn’t work out and the opponent played well, it was good that I drew. This attitude helped me a lot because at some point people make mistakes. You just have to wait for them.”An unbeaten streak followed in his remaining eight games with six wins and two draws. He finished the tournament with a score of 7/9, half a point ahead of Vietnam’s runner-up GM Nguyen Duc Hoa.

“Satisfied is not the right word”

Akshat Khamparia, the first IM in the state, hailing from the same town, recalls a boy who was reticent aside from the board but unusually matured towards her.Even as a youngster, he relied on patience and structure rather than fireworks, splitting positions with careful movement well before he had the ratings to support that style.Khamparia, the convener of the MP Chess Committee, who has spent years building the tournament circuit, has a habit of promoting the state’s young players at every event he hosts with face-up banners at the venues.

Banner with the faces of prominent chess players in MP (special arrangement)

“We have done a lot for Anuj as well,” Khamparia said. “We’ve been highlighting him everywhere, at events, every chance we get.”It’s the same persistence that, separately, saw Khamparia nudge Shrivatri for years to secure a career in sports quota jobs at Indian Railways.And after years of pushing Anuj, the process has now gone through. Anuj’s medical treatment has been completed and his entry into the Western Railway is in its final stages.Even now Shrivatri resists calling himself satisfied.“Satisfied isn’t the right word,” he said, “because I feel pretty strongly that you should never be satisfied in life. You should enjoy the milestone, of course, but you should never settle in general. That’s what I try to live by.”So what’s next for him? The 22-year-old concluded: “There are two things I’m sure of. I want to break the 2600 mark and I want to win as many tournaments as possible. Those are my two goals in chess now.”