Nihal Sarin

Nihal was born on 13 July 2004 in Thrissur in the Indian state of Kerala. Sarin Abdulsalam, Nihal’s father, is a dermatologist while his mother, Shijin Ammanam Veetil Ummar, is a psychiatrist. He spent his first few years in Kottayam.

Nihal won the Kerala state championship in Under-07 category in 2011, the Under-09 title twice, the Under-11 title twice and Under-15 (Sub-Junior) title once. He became runner-up in State Senior championship in 2015, Irinjalakuda at the age of 10 years, thus becoming eligible to represent Kerala in the National Challengers Championship 2015. He was twice the State Under-19 (Juniors) Runner-up at the age of 8 & 10 years respectively.

Nihal won the gold medal in the World Blitz Championship in the Under-10 category in Al-Ain in 2013. In the same category, he was the Rapid and Blitz gold medalist in the Asian Youth Championship in Tashkent in 2014.

Nihal was the National Under-9 Champion, 2013 in Chennai, the National Under-11 Bronze medalist in 2014 at Puri, and the National Under-11 Silver medalist, 2015 in Pondicherry.

Nihal's first big break came at the World Youth Chess Championship in the Under-10 category, which was held in Durban, South Africa in September 2014. He scored 9/11 to be crowned the Under-10 World Champion. For this achievement, he was conferred the Candidate Master (CM) title by FIDE.

In 2014, Nihal began to work with Ukrainian Dimitri Komarov, an experienced coach with international success in his playing days. Right after his World Youth success in 2014, Nihal scored his first victory over a titled player—IM Jonathan Westerberg of Sweden—at the World Junior Championship 2014 in Pune, India. For a year, Nihal was a regular in all the tournaments of importance held in India including the National Challengers Championship in Nagpur. He would regularly hold titled players to draws.

The next year in 2015, he won the silver medal in the Under-12 category of World Youth Chess Championship (WYCC, Greece) starting as the 28th seed among 202 participants from 73 countries. In the last rounds of the tournament, Nihal successively defeated the top two seeds of his category: IM Awonder Liang in round seven, and FM Nodirbek Abdusattorov (rated 2432) in round eight. He was conferred the FIDE Master title by the World chess Federation (FIDE) in the same year as he had crossed live Elo rating of 2300.

He was also a guest competitor in the Malayalam TV quiz show Aswamedham in March 2015. It is a popular Malayalam reverse quiz game show hosted by G.S. Pradeep and aired on Kairali TV.

In the 2016 edition of the tournament held in Batumi, Georgia, Nihal scored 8½/11 and tied for the second spot with three others. He was fourth on tiebreak.

In February 2016, Nihal played his first International Open outside India — the prestigious Cappelle la Grande Open — and registered his first International Master norm. In the process, he defeated a grandmaster for the first time in his career.

In Hasselbacken Open 2016 held at the turn of April in Stockholm, Nihal beat Lithuanian grandmaster Eduardas Rozentalis. The database website Chess-DB dubbed this performance as the ‘Game of the Day’ on 8 May 2016.

On the occasion of Children's Day in 2016, Nihal was chosen as one of the recipients of 'National child award for exceptional achievement' awarded by the then President of India Mr. Pranab Mukherjee.

At the World Youth Chess Olympiad in December 2017, Nihal played for India Green, helping the country secure a silver medal. He also won an Individual gold on board three.

At the TV2 Fagernes International 2017, Nihal tied for the second place to finish with 6.0/9. He was fourth on the tiebreak and stayed undefeated throughout the tournament. In the process, he scored his maiden Grand Master norm. In 2017, Nihal increased his rating by 192 elo points to cross 2500 in rating.

Nihal made his debut at the Isbank Turkish Super League in July 2018, leading the team Genc Akademisyenler on the first board. He scored 6.0/12 against an opposition made up of an average rating of 2590.

Nihal ended 2018 with a spectacular performance at the World Blitz Championship in Saint Petersburg, Russia where he scored 13½/21 with a rating performance of 2777, taking the 11th place on tiebreak.

Chess.com - Happy 14th birthday to IM Nihal Sarin ️! ... | Facebook

Happy 14th birthday to IM Nihal Sarin ️! This talented player is already the highest-rated blitz chess player from India on Chess.com! ⚡