SportBackground

Pranav Venkatesh becomes India's 75th chess grandmaster at age 15

In 2022, the 15-year-old from Chennai completed his final norm and became India's 75th chess grandmaster, the game's highest title.

7 Nov 2026, 01:171 min read

This summary was written by AI to complete the context; it is not based on a current source.

Pranav Venkatesh, a teenager from Chennai in Tamil Nadu, earned the grandmaster title in 2022, becoming the 75th player from India to reach chess's highest rank. He was 15 at the time.

A grandmaster title from FIDE, the world chess federation, requires three results known as norms, which are strong tournament performances against high-level opposition, plus a rating of at least 2500. Pranav collected his norms across several events, including an open tournament in Serbia in 2021, a tournament in Hungary in 2022 and the Limpedea Cup in Romania, where he completed the set. His second norm in Hungary had also lifted his rating past 2500.

The achievement mattered because it added another young talent to India's fast-growing pool of grandmasters, a generation that includes several teenagers who reached the title in the early 2020s. It also marked the start of Pranav's rise in junior chess, which later brought him major international titles, including the world junior championship in 2025.