Prithu Gupta

{{Short description|Indian chess grandmaster (born 2004)}}

{{BLP sources|date=February 2022}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2022}}

{{Use Indian English|date=October 2022}}

{{Infobox chess biography

|name=Prithu Gupta

|country=India

|image=Narendra Modi with Prithu Gupta, 2020 (cropped).jpg

|caption=Gupta in 2020

|title=Grandmaster (2019)

|FideID= 46618546

|peakrating=2493 (August 2019)

|birth_date={{birth date and age|2004|3|8|df=y}}

|birth_place = Gurgaon, India

}}

Prithu Gupta is an Indian chess grandmaster from Gurgaon, Haryana. He reached this milestone in July 2019, at the age of 15 years and 4 months, 31 years after Viswanathan Anand became India's first GM. He began playing chess when he was nine years old, which is relatively late compared to most other grandmasters.

Career

Beginning with an Elo rating of 1187 in October 2013,{{Cite web|date=2017-01-06|title=From 1187 to 2219 in just three years - ChessBase India|url=https://www.chessbase.in/news/prithu-gupta/|access-date=2022-02-02|website=www.chessbase.in}} Prithu went past 2500 in less than six years of competition despite playing in a lesser number of tournaments, focusing instead on the top-ranking events, which featured the best players.{{Cite web|date=2018-04-02|title=Prithu Gupta - FIDE Ratings - International Chess Federation|url=https://ratings.fide.com/profile/46618546}}

Prithu achieved his maiden International Master (IM) norm{{Cite web|date=2017-07-02|title=13-year-old Prithu Gupta makes his maiden IM norm - ChessBase India|url=https://www.chessbase.in/news/prithu-gupta-im-norm/|access-date=2022-02-02|website=www.chessbase.in}} at the Silver Lake Open in Silver Lake, Veliko Gradište, Serbia, in July 2017, and his second IM norm came a month later at the Golden Prague Chess Festival in the Czech Republic, where he won seven out of his nine matches in the round-robin event, finishing top and crossing 2300 Elo rating points in the process.

In January 2018 at the Tradewise Gibraltar Masters,{{Cite web|date=2018-02-01|title=Gibraltar 2018: Prithu Gupta becomes an IM and scores his maiden GM norm - ChessBase India|url=https://www.chessbase.in/news/Gibraltar_2018_round_8_and_9|access-date=2022-02-02|website=www.chessbase.in}} Prithu won the title of International Master and achieved his first Grandmaster (GM) norm.{{Cite web|date=2018-02-10|title=Prithu Gupta- IM title and one GM Norm at the age of 13! - ChessBase India|url=https://www.chessbase.in/news/Prithu_Gupta_IM_and_GM_norm|access-date=2022-02-02|website=www.chessbase.in}} Then, following a tied-4th finish at the 7th Llucmajor Open in Palma da Mallorca,{{Cite web|date=2018-05-24|title=Swayams Mishra and Prithu Gupta shine at the Llucmajor Open 2018 in Mallorca - ChessBase India|url=https://www.chessbase.in/news/Llucmajor_Chess_Open_2018|access-date=2022-02-02|website=www.chessbase.in}} Prithu obtained his second GM norm{{Cite web|date=2018-08-13|title=Prithu Gupta - the boy who tops in class and scores GM norms with ease! - ChessBase India|url=https://www.chessbase.in/news/Prithu_Gupta_second_GM_norm|access-date=2022-02-02|website=www.chessbase.in}} at the Biel International Chess Festival in Switzerland, in July 2018.

Also in July 2018, Prithu earned top honours in the team event of the Portuguese League in Porto, and in October of the same year, he was judged the second-best youngster in the under-18 category at the Isle of Man Masters in the UK.

In July 2019, at age 15, and three months after finishing runner-up amongst juniors at the [https://www.reykjavikopen.com Reykjavik Open] (under-18 category), Prithu secured his third GM norm with a round to spare at the Porticcio Open in Corsica, where he finished ninth. A week later during the Portuguese League (first division), he became India’s 64th Grandmaster{{Cite news|last=Rao|first=Rakesh|date=2019-07-19|title=Prithu Gupta is the country's 64th GM|language=en-IN|work=The Hindu|url=https://www.thehindu.com/sport/other-sports/prithu-gupta-is-the-countrys-64th-gm/article28598908.ece|access-date=2022-02-08|issn=0971-751X}} – after his win in the fifth round against German IM Lev Yankelevich, Prithu’s Elo rating crossed 2500.

For his achievements, and for reaching that all-important third GM norm and moving past 2500 Elo points to confirm his Grandmaster status, Prithu was honoured with the state award for outstanding sportspersons by the government of Haryana, his home state, in August 2019, and was a recipient of the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar award in January 2020. The Rashtriya Bal Puraskar{{Cite web|title=Ministry of Women and Child Development|url=https://nca-wcd.nic.in/|access-date=2022-02-02|website=nca-wcd.nic.in|archive-date=25 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125164854/https://nca-wcd.nic.in/|url-status=dead}} is given to Indians under the age of 18 for exceptional efforts in different fields, including sport.

He currently attends Emory University.

Achievements

  • 2017: 1st IM norm, Silver Lake Open, Serbia
  • 2017: 1st position, [http://www.praguechessfestival.com Golden Prague Chess Festival]
  • 2017: 2nd IM norm, Golden Prague Chess Festival
  • 2018: Secured third IM norm and won title of International Master, [http://www.gibchess.com Tradewise Gibraltar Masters], Gibraltar
  • 2018: 1st GM norm, Tradewise Gibraltar Masters, Gibraltar
  • 2018: 2nd GM norm, [http://www.bielchessfestival.ch Biel International Chess Festival], Biel, Switzerland
  • 2018: 1st position, team event, Portuguese Team Championship
  • 2019: Achieved third and final GM norm, Porticcio Open, Corsica
  • 2019: Became India’s 64th Grandmaster, Portuguese League, Evora, Portugal
  • 2020: Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 

References

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