Nihal Sarin

Early childhood

Nihal was born on 13 July 2004 at Thrissur. He spent his first few years in Kottayam in Kerala.

He could recognize the capitals and the flags of all the 190 odd countries by the age of three. By the time he was in upper kindergarten, he was speaking fluently in English. By the time he turned six and enrolled into the first standard he knew the multiplication tables till sixteen.

Nihal learned chess at the age of five. In order to not make him feel bored during school vacations, his father introduced Nihal to a chess set and his grandfather A.A. Ummar taught him the rules at Kottayam where he was a student of Excelsior English School. Nihal was formally taught chess by Mathew .P.Joseph Pottoore, the school’s chess coach who instructed once a week in the beginning and later became the most influential person in Nihal's early chess development.

First successes

In 2011-12, Nihal and his family moved to Thrissur where Nihal joined Devamatha CMI Public School.

Nihal has won the Kerala state championship in Under-07 category in 2011, the Under-09 title twice, the Under-11 title twice and Under-15 (Sub-Junior) title once. He became runner up in State Senior championship in 2015, Irinjalakuda at the age of 10 years, thus becoming eligible to represent Kerala in the National Challengers Championship 2015. He was twice the State Under-19 (Juniors) Runner-up at the age of 8 & 10 years respectively.

Nihal was the National Under-9 Champion, 2013 in Chennai, the National Under-11 Bronze medalist in 2014 at Puri, and the National Under-11 Silver medalist, 2015 in Pondicherry.

The World Youth Championships

Nihal’s first big break came at the World Youth Chess Championship in the Under-10 category, which was held in Durban, South Africa in September 2014. He scored 9.0/11 to be crowned the Under-10 World Champion. For this achievement, he was conferred the Candidate Master (CM) title by FIDE.

The next year in 2015, he won the silver medal in the Under-12 category of World Youth Chess Championship (WYCC, Greece) starting as the 28th seed among 202 participants from 73 countries. In the last rounds of the tournament, Nihal successively defeated the top two seeds of his category: IM Awonder Liang in round seven, and FM Nodirbek Abdusattorov (rated 2432) in round eight. He was conferred the FIDE Master title by the World chess Federation (FIDE) in the same year as he had crossed live Elo rating of 2300.

In the 2016 edition of the tournament held in Batumi, Georgia, Nihal scored 8.5/11 and tied for the second spot with three others. He had to settle for the fourth place on tiebreak.

International tournaments

Nihal started playing competitive chess as a seven-year-old in the middle of 2011. He is a product of regular FIDE rated tournaments held in his home state Kerala and other parts of India under the aegis of the Kerala Chess Association and the All India Chess Federation.

In 2014, Nihal began to work with Ukrainian GM Dimitri Komarov, an experienced coach with international success in his playing days. Right after his World Youth success in 2014, Nihal scored his first victory over a titled player—IM Jonathan Westerberg of Sweden—at the World Junior Championship 2014 in Pune, India. For a year, Nihal was a regular in all the tournaments of importance held in India including the National Challengers Championship in Nagpur. He would regularly hold titled players to draws.

In February 2016, Nihal played his first International Open outside India — the prestigious Cappelle la Grande Open — and registered his first International Master norm. In the process, he defeated a grandmaster for the first time in his career.

In Hasselbacken Open 2016 held at the turn of April in Stockholm, Nihal beat Lithuanian GM Eduardas Rozentalis who is famous for his creative play. The database website Chess-DB dubbed this performance as the ‘Game of the Day’ on 8 May 2016.

At the Sunway Sitges Open 2016, Nihal registered his second International norm by scoring 5.5/9.His third International Norm was registered in the Aeroflot B Open 2017 held in February, where Nihal scored 5.5/9 as well, performing at 2539, to cross the 2400-mark and become an International Master.

At the TV2 Fagernes International 2017, Nihal tied for the second place to finish with 6.0/9. He was fourth on the tiebreak and stayed undefeated throughout the tournament. In the process, he scored his maiden Grand Master norm. He did this at the age of 12 years, 09 months, 03 days, becoming the youngest Indian to achieve the feat.

Speed Chess

Nihal won the gold medal in the World Blitz Championship in the Under-10 category in Al-Ain in 2013. In the same category, he was the Rapid and Blitz gold medalist in the Asian Youth Championship in Tashkent in 2014.

At Dubai Blitz Championship held alongside the Dubai Open 2016, Nihal finished 19th with a score of 7.5/11. In the process, he defeated the then Indian Blitz Champion K. Rathnakaran and also Ukrainian GM Yuriy Kuzubov in the final round.

In December 2016, Nihal competed in two reasonably strong blitz events at Sitges, Spain. In the first event, Nihal finished sixth after starting as the thirty-third seed. In the second event, despite starting as the thirty-sixth seed, he was runner-up with a score of 7.0/8 with victories over several titled players including GM Evgeny Postny.

Nihal is a regular participant in the Titled Tuesday Tournaments hosted on Chess.com. Nihal is a key member of Team Delhi Dynamite in the PRO Chess League hosted by chess.com. The league is held in rapid time controls and has the world’s best players like Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier Lagrave, Wesley So, etc., competing for top prizes.

Training

Nihal's early coach Mathew Pottoore taught him the basics and made him fall in love with chess. From this point on, Mr.M.B.Muralidharan, Prof. N.R.Anil Kumar, Mr.C.T.Pathrose & K.K.Manikantan helped him to polish his skills. Nihal is coached by E.P. Nirmal from 2013 on a regular basis, helping him develop from a raw talent to a rising player.

He is also coached by Ukrainian GM Dimitri Komarov from 2014 until the present day. Since 2016, Nihal began working independently on his game as well.

Popularizing chess

In his effort to popularise the sport of chess at the grassroots level, Nihal occasionally performs Simultaneous Exhibitions. At the age of 10 years at Thodupuzha, Kerala, he played simultaneously against 112 players of all age categories winning all his games.

He was also a guest competitor in the Malayalam TV quiz show Aswamedham in March 2015. It is a popular Malayalam reverse quiz game show hosted by G.S. Pradeep and aired on Kairali TV.

On the occasion of Children's Day, Nihal was chosen as one of the recipients of 'National child award for exceptional achievement' in 2016 awarded by the President of India Mr Pranab Mukherjee.

Personal life

Nihal's father Sarin Abdulsalam is a Dermatologist and works at the Thrissur Govt. Medical College as an assistant professor. His mother Shijin Ammanam Veetil Ummar is a Psychiatrist and also works as an assistant professor in the same institution. Nihal has a younger sister named Neha Sarin.