Vaishali over the moon after getting GM tag

Chennai, May 1

A Grandmaster much before the title was officially bestowed on her by FIDE recently, Indian chess player R Vaishali has revealed that there was a time she was unsure of being able to achieve the feat but managed to pull through owing to a good support structure.

Vaishali completed the requisite 2, 500 ELO points Llobregat Open tournament in Spain to become only the third Indian woman after Koneru Humpy and Harika Dronavalli to become a GM.

However, the title was officially given to her only recently following the FIDE council meeting during the Candidates tournament in Toronto last month.

“After completing the (Women’s GM) title, I knew it would be changed to GM someday. I did not think about the title so much,” she said. “Yeah, it took some time to get it official, but I’m happy that the title is finally out. I was okay with it (the delay),” she added.

The 22-year-old is basking in the glory of her solid performance in the Candidates, where she won five consecutive games to finish joint second. She became a Woman Grandmaster (WGM) in 2018 after completing her final norm during the Riga Technical University Open in Latvia.

Having had to wait six years to finally earn the GM tag, Vaishali said she became a bit unsure of it after her ratings stagnated due to lack of competition during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“In between, I could not play any tournament for two years due to the pandemic. I completed my International Master (IM) cycle post-pandemic (in 2021),” she recalled. “But, I was working throughout, trying to improve my game “I was improving my game slowly, but my rating became stagnant.”