How Vishy Anand is supporting young super talents of India through WACA

India has seen the rise of many fine chess players who have done exceedingly well in their junior years and have even become strong grandmasters, but have stumbled on their path towards becoming world class players. There was definitely something missing when it came to development of these talents. As on today, it is widely agreed in the chess world that India has the best crop of young talents with players like Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin, Raunak Sadhwani and many others. In order to ensure that their potential reaches the right destination, Vishy Anand decided to start off with the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA) in December 2020. How did it all begin? How does this academy function? And how has been the journey of WACA since inception? Get to know all of this and more in this article. 

It was the 8th of August 2022. The penultimate round of the Chess Olympiad 2022. India was up against Uzbekistan. The score was looking good for India. 2-1. Gukesh on the top board had been absolutely flawless at the event scoring 8.5/9. Now he was going to reach 9.5/10 with a completely winning position against Nodirbek Abdusattorov. And then it happened - something that has happened with almost all chess players in their life. You are winning, but you just can't finish off your opponent. You keep losing the thread of the game and before you know it, the game is already out of your grasp. Gukesh lost this game. What was even more painful for Gukesh was the fact that it was not just his individual defeat, but the team score also read 2-2, which meant that Uzbekistan got that crucial 1 match point. It helped them win the gold.

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