Chess | India’s young talent could do better with more sponsorship and government support

India celebrates chess success, but many young stars struggle with expensive international play and lack of sponsorship.

India is celebrating the country’s historic twin gold at Budapest, and the World champions had a meeting with the Prime Minister in New Delhi on Wednesday. But, not many know how difficult the families of some bright young stars are finding to support their career.

International chess is expensive. You have to play abroad regularly and coaches are very costly (the best of them charge something like ₹7,000 per hour).

Not all the big names have big sponsorship deals

Divya Deshmukh was the rock of the Indian women’s team at the Chess Olympiad. She played all the 11 rounds, won eight of them and drew three. She won the individual gold, on the third board, in addition to India’s historic team gold.

She is ranked No. 15th in the world among women and should be moving up when the next FIDE rating list comes out next week. Back in June, she won the World junior championship at Ahmedabad. She is the World No. 1 in the junior girls’ ranking list. Last year she won the Tata Steel Chess India blitz title after beginning her campaign as the tenth seed in a field of ten.

And she is only 18. She is indeed the most promising player in women’s chess in India at the moment.

Divya’s father, a Nagpur-based doctor, once told this correspondent, smiling, “I am her sponsor.”