NEW DELHI: Do you remember the feeling of sitting your Class 10 board exam? Very few don’t feel butterflies in their stomach beforehand. For India’s 98th Grandmaster (GM) Aswath S, the board exam meant putting the chessboard, his lifelong companion, aside for four months, from the start of the year until April, for the sake of what many call the first “grand challenge” of academic life. With two GM norms already in his pocket, what the teenager from Chennai needed was just one more GM norm to become a Grandmaster. That moment came on Wednesday, in his first classical tournament of the year.Aswath scored his third and final GM norm at the Pune International GM Round Robin 2026. Taking down FM Kannan Vaidyanathan with the black pieces in the final round, he finished the tournament with 7/9 points, secured the final GM norm and earned the coveted title in the process.“It is very amazing to feel that I’m a Grandmaster right now,” Aswath told TimesofIndia.com during an exclusive interaction from Pune. “It had slipped away for almost the last two years. I crossed 2500 in December, so after that, I had to score only the norms, but it took me so long.”Aswath secured his first norm by winning the strong Grenke Open A ahead of several seasoned Grandmasters.His second came at the First Saturday GM Round Robin in Budapest in December 2025, where he also scored 7/9 and crossed the 2500 FIDE rating mark.

From a family of chess coaches

Aswath’s roots in chess run deep in Tamil Nadu’s Nagercoil, where his father, A.C. Siva, runs a chess academy as a full-time professional coach.“I started playing chess when I was three years old, and my coach was my father,” Aswath recalled. “At that age, I used to roam around the academy saying the chess pieces’ names. Then I started playing and entered a tournament at the age of four.”

Aswath S with his family (Special Arrangements)

The defining moment came early. “At the age of seven, when I played the Under-7 Tamil Nadu State Championship, I won the tournament with a score of 9 out of 9. That was one of the biggest motivations for me to take chess as a profession,” he admitted.With his mother, Sheela, teaching beginners at the academy and his elder sister having once competed in the sport, chess was already woven into the fabric of the family.

The road to becoming a Grandmaster

Despite his early promise, the road to the GM title was riddled with many hurdles. Aswath found that playing locally was a double-edged sword.“Mainly, the tournament exposure was a challenge because generally we don’t get to play such big events in India in the earlier days,” Aswath explained. “And, in India, the lower raters are very much underrated because they are so strong, stronger than their ratings. If we go abroad, we can increase rating points quite easily, but of course, money comes as a big thing. We need sponsors.”Aswath’s development shifted gears when he began working with IM Senthil Maran after the pandemic, and later with his current coach, GM Shyam Sundar, in late 2023.“He is a very hardworking kid, a very responsible fellow, passionate, determined, and has no social media distractions,” Sundar told this website.“Chess-wise, he obeys whatever I say. There are many things he likes to do, like working on certain openings in depth. But when I say that it is not needed for his level, he asks for the reasoning and accepts it. Listening to the point is very important.”With the teenager’s GM title marking a milestone for the coach as Aswath became the sixth of his students to achieve the feat, Shyam reveals the mantra.“I have created a culture where guys of similar levels actually share materials. Aswath is in it,” he added. “It’s a very healthy bond. He also focuses well on his fitness. He does gym activities at home and is open to playing any sport.”

Beyond the 64 squares

Despite his monumental achievement, Aswath remains incredibly grounded, partly due to his academic commitments. A student of Velammal School in Chennai, he is currently pursuing commerce in his 11th grade.“This was my first classical tournament this year because I had to study for my 10th board exams,” he noted. “For four months, from January to April, I didn’t see chess.”

Aswath S at Pune International GM Round Robin 2026 (Special Arrangements)

Now that the boards are cleared and the GM title is secured, Aswath’s eyes are firmly set on the future. The 98th Grandmaster of India knows the sought-after title is nothing more than a checkpoint.“GM is just a starting of the real chess world, actually, to be frank,” Aswath concluded. “There’s a lot more to go, like 2600, 2700, the top world rankings. My short-term goal would be 2600.”