Niranjan Navalgund is a chess player, trainer, and author. He served as a guest lecturer in the Project Checkmate 2.0 program in 2020. Recently, he was appointed as the coach of the Indian team at the 16th IBCA World Team Olympiad Championship in Greece. All the team members were a part of our Checkmate 2.0 program. In this interview, we catch up with him to learn more about the journey of the squad at the Olympiad and the next steps in place for other upcoming events. 1. Can you share how you were appointed as the coach of the team? I received a call from the treasurer of AICFB - Shri Swapnil Shah- in July (who also joined us as Manager of the team), and he told me that they were considering me as a coach for the team. I took sometime to check my schedule and then agreed to join the team as a coach and the captain. Coincidentally, I designed a training course under the guidance of AICFB President Dr. Charudatta Jadhav for different levels in the early part of the year. 3 students from the Udaan program qualified to represent India in the 16th IBCA Chess Olympiad. Since I knew the players, it was easy to make the decision. 2. How did you prepare for the tournament? We prepared for the event in stages. In the first stage, I spent several weeks trying to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the players in our team. The next stage involved clearing the individual doubts of the players and also explaining intricacies of certain middlegames and endgames to elevate their overall chess strength. In the third stage, we focused on probable opponents and started working on different possible opening repertoires with Plan A and Plan B, considering both the colors. In this period, I sought help from my good friends, FM Ankit Gajwa and Prasanna S, who are also good trainers themselves. They played training games with the team to test their preparation. In addition to this, Aryan Joshi was helped by Raghunandan Gokhale and Marimuthu was being trained by K.Visweswaran, which helped them to further improve their chess. In the final stage, we discussed the logistics, things to carry and the do's and don'ts of a team event. 3. What were your thoughts going into the tournament? This was my first stint as a coach for an Indian team. I had trained students individually, though. Since I had no prior experience, I did not know what to expect. I felt that we worked reasonably well with the resources that we had and were hopeful of giving our best, and I felt that we did that. 4. The Indian team played quite a few good rounds. What were some of the learnings during this event? The learnings were many. As a coach, the experience in itself contained a lot of learnings. For the team, we understood that we need to keep in touch with the game more often. I also shared my personal observations with them and gave the feedback to players as to where they could improve in their approach and actions. 5. Two players won medals at the events. What can you say about their overall performance as a team? Both the medalists - Aryan Joshi and Darpan Inani played some great games in the event. Aryan's home preparation gave him the extra boost to perform at a high level. The medal shows that he has great potential. Darpan's solid play gave a lot of points to the team and his experience also helped the team overall. Every player in the team contributed in their own ways. Even the person who was rested always participated in the team preparation. 6. What are your next events? I hope to resume playing in 2022. Currently, I'm focusing on the work at chess.com. 7. Where do you see the Indian blind chess community going from here? We showed that we are very close to bringing a team medal. I observed that the event was closely watched, and the players will use the results as a motivation to practice more. Great results could attract sponsors too. If the federation manages to organize regular events and are consistent with it, it might influence the community to a greater extent. 8. What can an individual do to support this area of chess? 1) Video content creators could announce the moves in the video which will help the blind players to absorb the chess content. 2) Sponsoring the National / State events could also help the top players 3) There could be courses on chess that could be made available to the players. 9. What are your own future goals as a trainer and player? The training assignment just happened, and this was never part of the plan. I went ahead with my gut. I enjoy teaching curious students and have no particular goal in this regard. Regarding the goals as a player, Yes - I hope to resume playing. There is still a lot of work I need to do on my game, and I will start playing once I feel ready. 10. What advice can you give to others who would like to pursue their passions to make that jump start in whatever they are doing? It is hard to give a generic advice. But, I'll tell you what I do: I follow my gut. Sometimes, I may not really get to play the role I want to - but it may eventually happen. For that to happen, patience may be the ingredient. I would like to thank Chess.com for their overall support and my family too for always being there for me. Special thanks to the entire team of AICFB. |