Anuj Shrivatri Becomes India's 100th Chess Grandmaster, Explained

India has 100 chess Grandmasters. The hundredth is Anuj Shrivatri, a 22-year-old International Master from Katni, Madhya Pradesh, who won the 7th ASEAN Plus Individual Open Chess Championship in the Philippines on Sunday, 8 November 2026, Diwali, and took the GM title directly from that result.

He is also the first Grandmaster from Madhya Pradesh. The Hindu, The Times of India, The Indian Express and PTI all carried the milestone, and the All India Chess Federation's president, Nitin Narang, marked it on X: "Onwards to 200 Grandmasters!"

The 60-second version

• Who: IM Anuj Shrivatri, 22, from Katni, Madhya Pradesh. India No. 76 and rated 2450 going in, per The Times of India.
• Where: The 7th ASEAN Plus Individual Open Chess Championship, Ozamiz City, Misamis Occidental, the Philippines.
• Score: Lost round 1, then 7 points from 9. Half a point clear of Vietnam's GM Nguyen Duc Hoa (6.5).
• The route: A FIDE-approved direct GM title for the winner, not the usual three norms plus a 2500 rating. TOI.
• The milestones: India's 100th GM, Madhya Pradesh's first.
• The century: From Viswanathan Anand (GM in 1988) to Anuj. TOI says 80 of the 100 have come since 2010.

How he won it

The tournament ran over nine rounds. TOI reported that Anuj, the fourth seed, lost his opening game to home player Arca Karlo, then won six of his next eight games to finish on seven points. Sportstar said he won the last two rounds to finish half a point ahead of Nguyen Duc Hoa. ChessBase India's final standings have the top of the table like this:

Rank	Player	Fed	Rating	Points
1	IM Anuj Shrivatri	IND	2450	7
2	GM Nguyen Duc Hoa	VIE	2427	6.5
3	FM Nouri Alekhine	PHI	2257	6
4	IM Viani Antonio Dcunha	IND	2382	6
5	IM Nguyen Quoc Hy	VIE	2474	6

TOI said he collected $3,000 for the title, finished with a performance rating of 2586, and is expected to gain around 15 rating points.

Why there were no three norms this time

The standard path to GM is three norms across at least 27 games and a rating of at least 2500. Anuj's peak rating, per TOI, was 2483, set in June, so he had not crossed 2500.

TOI reported that this event was one of the special formats where FIDE awards the GM title directly to the winner. The ASEAN Plus championship qualified on condition that at least four GMs and six IMs played in every round. India is not one of the 11 members of the ASEAN chess bloc, TOI noted, but Indian players were allowed to enter.

TOI was also candid that the route was kinder than a norm event. It said Anuj faced only two players from the top 10 seeds, none rated higher than him, and his 2586 performance was short of the 2600 a conventional norm needs. It named Ayush Sharma, Neelash Saha, Nitish Belurkar, Mohd Imran and Ajay Parvathareddy as players who looked better placed to be No. 100, having already met either the norm or rating requirement.

The title is still a full GM title. TOI pointed out that Divya Deshmukh also became India's fourth woman GM through a special route, the Women's World Cup, rather than the norm system.

Who is Anuj Shrivatri

Sportstar's profile fills in the story behind the result:

• His first lessons came around 2010 in Katni with coach Birendra Kumar Tiwari, who did not run an academy and chose whom he would teach. His father, Ashok Shrivatri, a science teacher at a railway school, ferried the coach to their home for about a year and a half. The fee was Rs 500 a month.
• Tiwari died of a heart attack in October 2012, the night he returned to Katni from the National Under-9 championship in Ahmedabad after learning that his mother was ill. She had died before he reached home. "We kept reminding him that it was sir's dream that he become a GM," Ashok told Sportstar.
• Later coaches included Yashpal Arora, Rajesh Bahadur (2016 to 2019), IM Anup Deshmukh and FIDE instructor Niklesh Jain.
• He was third at the National Under-13 in 2016, behind Arjun Erigaisi and Koustav Chatterjee, and fourth in the Under-14 open at the 2017 World Youth Championship in Montevideo, unbeaten on 8 from 11.
• IM norms came at Sitges 2018, Goa 2019 and Sant Adria 2019. His IM title was approved in 2020. TOI dates him as an IM since 2019, the year he completed the norms.
• He did a B.Tech in computer science at Lovely Professional University, finished in 2023 per his father, took a work-from-home job with a German company, and left it in 2024 to give chess eight or nine hours a day.

India's century of Grandmasters

Viswanathan Anand started the list. Sportstar said he completed his final norm at the Sakthi Finance tournament in Coimbatore on 28 December 1987, and The Hindu dates his title to 1988. Sportstar also noted that Anand won the 1987 World Junior Championship in Baguio, in the same country where Anuj has now taken India to 100.

The Hindu said S. Aswath and V.S. Rathanvel were the 98th and 99th. The Indian Express said Rathanvel, 25, crossed 2500 Elo in July at the Guwahati Smart City International Open 2026, having completed his norms in 2022.

The shape of the list, from TOI and The Hindu:

• 80 of India's 100 GMs have come since 2010, and 35 in the last six to seven years. TOI.
• Tamil Nadu accounts for 38% of India's GMs, per The Hindu's data team. TOI put it at nearly 40, with Maharashtra above 10.
• India is not the first country to 100. TOI said Russia, the US, Ukraine and Germany got there first, with Russia above 250, and more than 2,000 players have the title worldwide.

What to watch next

1. FIDE's formal confirmation. Reports describe the title as earned on winning the event. The GM title appears on FIDE's records after formal ratification, which is the step to watch.
2. The rating. TOI expects him to gain about 15 points from Ozamiz. On his 2450 starting rating, that is roughly 2465, still below his June peak of 2483 and the 2500 mark.
3. ChessBase India's interview. ChessBase India said a full report with an interview with Anuj will be published.
4. No. 101. TOI's list of players who had already met the norm or rating requirement, including Ayush Sharma, Neelash Saha, Nitish Belurkar, Mohd Imran and Ajay Parvathareddy, is where the next GM is likely to come from.

A sawmill lesson in Katni in 2010, a coach who did not live to see it, and a Diwali night in the Philippines: that is how India's Grandmaster count reached three figures.

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The 8 November 2026 result, Ozamiz City venue, 7 points from 9, the 1988 title for Anand and the 98th and 99th GMs are from The Hindu (Sports Bureau). Katni, India No. 76, the 2450 and 2483 ratings, the direct-title format and its four GMs and six IMs condition, the opening loss to Arca Karlo, the $3,000 prize, the 2586 performance, the expected 15-point gain, the list of other contenders, Divya Deshmukh's route, the countries already past 100, the 80 since 2010, the 35 in six to seven years and the state counts are from The Times of India (Amit Karmarkar, 9 November). The final standings are from ChessBase India. Biographical details, coaches, junior results, IM norms and education are from Sportstar (Jayantho Sengupta, 9 November). The Narang quote and Rathanvel's Guwahati rating are from The Indian Express. The 38% Tamil Nadu share is from The Hindu's data team. PTI also reported the result.