Dhruv Dileep: Little Chess Champion Ready To Make The Right Moves

Bengaluru, June 16: India hardly had any dearth in chess talents and recently GM R Praggnanandhaa took the world by storm when he defeated the mighty Magnus Carlsen. Closer home, we have a little champ making ripples of his own.

Dhruv Dileep, aged 7. Dhruv recently won the Karnataka State under-7 chess championship conducted by the Chickballapur District Chess Association along with Panchajanya Chess Academy.

Now, Dhruv is primed to take part in the U-7 nationals to be held in Udaipur from July 15 to 20. Portends tell us that this DPS, Electronic City, student could just bring more laurels.

At times, the achievements come unexpected and their genesis lie in a rather simple turn of events. Dhruv was put into chess a couple of years back when the Covid pandemic and lockdown spread across the country.

Like thousands of other kids, Dhruv too was confined to indoors and there was every chance the geek inside a kid could be awakened. Online class, increased TV hours etc could have gripped him as well.

But here the parents — Deepa, a book editor and Dileep a C-Dot employee — found an alternate — introduce chess to Dhruv. Something that started as a hobby, a diversion tactic soon exploded into a full-fledged passion.

Dhruv bumped into notable chess coach Sushrutha Reddy and learned the nuances of this complex sport. “Sometimes we don’t really grasp the moves but Dhruv gets the moves much easier and quicker and his calculations are too quite good, as per his coaches,” says Deepa.

“It was started as a hobby during the lockdown and we did not have much confidence of him doing this well. But now, we are confident and even Dhruv, who also plays badminton, wants to continue in chess, Hopefully, we can make him participate in FIDE tournaments and see how he fares there,” she says.

Dhruv also horns his skills in the online platform Lichess but the parents face the challenge of balancing the time between the sport and studying. “I think Dhruv has taken to it quite alright as his studies too have improved after taking up chess, especially in subjects like maths. I also try to show him YouTube videos of various chess players and moves so that he keeps improving. Currently, he is watching videos of the late Mikhail Tal, the Russian GM.”

At present, Dhruv is taking coaching from women Grand Master Aarthie Ramaswamy and the parents hope that he travel to the next level.

Dhruv’s birth date — April 13 — coincides with the Russian legendary GM Garry Kasparov. Chess is all about numbers. Does this number ring a bell then?