Pentala Harikrishna

Some Lesser Known Facts About Pentala Harikrishna

• When he was four and a half years old, he was staying at his maternal grandfather’s house in the village Pratipadu, near Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. His grandfather liked to play chess as a hobby.

• When Pentala Harikrishna was a child, he was interested in playing cricket. He used to see his grandfather playing chess. His grandfather would spend hours playing chess with other people in the village.

  

• When his grandfather saw that his Harikrishna was interested in playing the game, he decided to teach him the rules.

• One day, while his grandfather was playing with a friend, he suggested Pentala Harikrishna a move that both players had missed. The move turned out to be the best one.

• This made his grandfather realize that Pentala Harikrishna could become a good chess player.

  

• After that, his grandfather began giving him regular mathematical puzzles, which he was good at solving. Pentala Harikrishna solved the math puzzles in his mind without pen and paper.

• His grandfather felt that Pentala Harikrishna had an aptitude in both chess and mathematics and should be taught more. Harikrishna was fascinated by the calculations and strategy of chess and enjoyed playing it.

• Pentala Harikrishna often played chess against his grandfather and did not give up until the end.

• His grandfather then invited some of the best players from his village to play against him so that Harikrishna could practice more.

• Once, in a media interview, Pentala Harikrishna remembered his first tournament where he beat a rated player who was very happy because his photo appeared in the newspaper for losing to a boy who could not even reach the table.

• As a child, he used to sit on his grandfather’s lap while participating in chess tournaments. Later, when people started saying that he was receiving help, he began sitting on two pillows to reach the chessboard.

• His first coach was his grandfather. Later, he was trained by G.K. Narayana of Guntur and then Shiv Prasad of Vijaywada.

  

• According to him, he enjoyed the tension of the game and wanted to keep it.

• Many of his opponents often finished in second or third positions because he was the best at sustaining the pressure.

  

• Harikrishna was a successful junior chess player. He won several titles including Indian Under-08 in 1993, Indian Under-10 in 1995, Indian Under-14 in 1999, Indian Under-15 in 1998, and Indian Under-18 in 1998.

  

• Pentala Harikrishna became the World Under-10 Champion in 1996.

• He won the Under-18 prize at the Commonwealth Chess Championship in 1999.

• When he was 14 years and 5 months old, Harikrishna joined the Indian team for the 2000 Chess Olympiad.

• After that, Harikrishna earned his second and third Grandmaster norms.

• In 2001, he secured seventh place at the Asian Individual Championship with a score of 7/11. In 2001, Harikrishna won the Commonwealth Championship in London on a tiebreak.

• Pentala Harikrishna then qualified for the 2002 FIDE World Chess Championship, where he was defeated in the first round by Alexander Beliavsky.

• After that, he achieved the Grandmaster title by reaching a FIDE rating of 2500 in the July 2000 rating list.

• He struggled at the World Team Championships, scoring 3.5/9 against 2700-rated players, and was eliminated from the Chess World Cup in the second round by Dmitry Jakovenko 1.5-0.5.

• In 2012, Pentala Harikrishna won Group B of Tata Steel, scoring 9/13 points. He then won the Cappelle-la-Grande Open on tiebreaks with 7/9 points.

• In July 2012, he was third on tiebreaks at the Benasque Open, scoring 8/10 points. He then secured fifth position on tiebreaks at the Biel Master event with 7.5/11 points.

• In December 2012, he reached his highest rating of 2698.

• In January 2013, Pentala Harikrishna appeared in the Tata Steel A group and finished seventh with 6.5/13 points.

• He then participated in the Greek league, won at the Biel Masters with 8.5/11 points, and tied for fifth place at the HZ Open with an unbeaten 7/9 points.

• In January 2014, Pentala Harikrishna finished seventh in the rejigged Tata Steel Masters with 5.5/11 points. After that, he scored 7/10 points at Gibraltar.

• In 2015, Pentala Harikrishna met the late Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam.

  

• He is an animal lover and has a pet cat and a dog.
  

  

  

• Pentala Harikrishna is a fitness enthusiast and regularly does physical exercises. He often shares videos of his workout sessions on social media.

  

• He likes travelling to distant places in his free time.