Anish Giri || Former Chess Child Prodigy

As per Wikipedia, Anish Kumar Giri is a former Russian-born Dutch Grandmaster chess prodigy. He secured the grandmaster title at the age of 14 years and 7 months. A four-time Dutch Chess Champion, Anish Giri, won the Corus Chess B Group in 2010. He represented the Netherlands at four Chess Olympiads (2010, 2012, 2014, 2016) and emerged as a winner of the 2012 Reggio Emilia tournament.

Personal Life

Born on June 28, 1994, in St Petersburg, his father, Sanjay Giri, is from Nepal, and his mother, Olga Giri, is from Russia. In 2002, his parents moved to Sapporo, Japan, and he lived there until 2008. Giri and his family moved to Rijswijk, the Netherlands, in 2008. His father worked at a research and consulting foundation. He also has two sisters, Natasha and Ayusha.

Giri finished high school at Grotius College in Delft in 2013. He married Sopiko Guramishvili in 2015. Currently, he’s living in The Hague. On October 3, 2016, while Anish played the Tal Memorial, his son Daniel was born.

Chess Career

Giri’s first club was a local youth sports club, ‘DYUSH-2’ in Russia. His trained under Asya Kovalyova and Andrei Praslov. He joined the Japan Chess Association and the Sapporo Chess Club.

Rapidly developing as a junior, Giri’s rating increased quickly from 2114 to 2672 between April 2006 and July 2010.

Giri shared the top place in the Russian Higher League Under-14s Boys Championship. He won the St Petersburg Boys Under 16s and coming third in the Under 18s event in 2007. 

The following year, he again shared first place at the Blokadny St Petersburg Open and win the Petrograd Winter Open. He brilliantly worked his first Grandmaster norm and achieved at the Intomart GfK Open. He shared second place at Kunsthalle GM Open and reaching his second Grandmaster norm Groningen by sharing fourth place with 6.5/9.

Achieving his third GM, Giri’s first appearance at a major tournament came in his second place at Corus Chess Group C in January 2009, his Grandmaster status confirmed in June. He also shared second at the Dutch Open, won the Dutch Championship, and shared second at the Unive tournament.

Grandmaster Journey

His performance in the previous year’s Corus Chess Group C earned him a spot in Group B in 2010. He won the tournament. Despite a disappointing result in the European Individual Championships, he drew a match with Nigel Short and won the Sigeman & Co tournament scoring 4.5/5, coming second in the Dutch Championships behind Erwin L’Ami and was one of the best scorers for the Rising Stars team during the NH tournament against the Experienced team, but was unable to qualify for the Melody Amber tournament, losing on tiebreaks against Nakamura.

In May 2010, news broke out that Giri aided Viswanathan Anand for the World Chess Championship 2010 against challenger Veselin Topalov. Anand won the match defending his title.

At his debut appearance at Tata Steel in 2011, he defeated Magnus Carlsen with Black in 22 moves. He also became Dutch champion for the second time and shared first place at Sigeman & Co with Wesley So and Hans Tikkanen.

Giri won the Reggio Emilia chess tournament in 2012 and claimed his third Dutch championship. He shared third place at the strong Biel Chess Festival. His victory trail continued with fourth place at the Reykjavik Open and a match victory against Vassily Ivanchuk at Leon in 2013.

He played both the 2012/13 and 2014/15 FIDE Grand Prix cycles but couldn’t qualify to the Candidates Tournament.

Giri shared second place at the 2004’s Tata Steel tournament. He also won the bronze medal for his first board performance at the 41st Chess Olympiad in Tromso. He finished second at the Qatar Masters Open.

Giri’s coaches were Vladimir Tukmakov and Vladimir Chuchelov.

He participated in the Candidates Tournament 2016 in Moscow, Russia, where he drew all 14 games.

Other Interests

Giri is a multilinguist, and he’s fluent in Russian, English, and Dutch and is moderately proficient in Japanese, Nepalese, and German. Apart from chess, he plays football and table tennis.

He elucidated a number of top games for the popular chess site ChessBase and wrote several articles for chess magazines like New in Chess, 64, and Schach Magazin 64. Giri was also a columnist for the magazine ChessVibes Training. He also has his own official website.

Anish Giri published his first book, ‘My Junior Years In Chess’ in 2014.

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