Chennai, One of the interesting aspects of the Indian chess team playing in the FIDE Online Olympiad is that nearly half of the team members were being coached by two coaches.

The two coaches are 44-year old Grandmaster (GM) R.B. Ramesh and 26-year old (GM) Srinath Narayanan and two of their students have been ranked as top performers at the Olympiad for their respective boards.

The wards of Ramesh are - GM Arvindh Chitambaram, GM R. Praggnanandhaa, Woman GM R. Vaishali - while that of Narayanan's are - GM Nihal Sarin and Woman International Master (WIM) Divya Deshmukh.

Interestingly, Praggnanandhaa and Deshmukh have been ranked as the best performers for board 5 and 6 respectively during their Pool A outing. While Praggnanandhaa won all his five games, Deshmukh had won four out of five games. The one game loss was due to net connectivity issues.

Be that as it may, what was also interesting is that both the coaches quit their active playing career to turn into coaches for their love of sharing their knowledge.

"Chess is my passion and trying to make a difference in young minds is the motivation," Ramesh became a coach at the age of 32 soon after winning the Commonwealth Championship in 2007 and quitting a well-paying job with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).

In 2019 Ramesh got the FIDE's Mark Dvoretsky Award 2018, for best trainer of juniors or a team in a juniors event.

His academy Chess Gurukul has produced several chess masters and his students have won 45 Gold medals in World events.

Narayanan, a triple Asian Junior champion -2012, 2013 and 2014 and World Under 12 Champion in 2005 actually started coaching to fund his chess career.

"At one point I had to fund my own career. I used to play in tournaments, win prize money and use the proceeds to play in tournaments overseas," Narayanan who began his coaching career in 2015 with two of his friends as his trainees.

"Since 2017, I have played 5-6 tournaments and became more involved in coaching. My game has not plateaued. I can still go up to an Elo rating of 2,650 from the current 2,540 points," Narayanan told IANS.

He agreed the Elo rating of a coach is also an important criterion in not only attracting students but also becoming a second for a top ranked player.
Narayanan has also worked as a second for one of the top ranked Indian players.

On transitioning from an active player to a coach Narayanan said: "The most important aspect is the willingness to give, as Ramesh who is also my biggest inspiration, told me."

Besides, the attitude of his coaches -Varugeese Koshy, Abhijit Kunte and Ramesh-during his formative years had helped him in the transition.
According to Ramesh, when one is a player, one is more self-centered thinking about upgrading skills, worrying about his own problems.

"But as a coach, your priority is your student, his problems and helping to solve them. We try to put ourselves into their position and try to understand why they do what they do," Ramesh said.

Narayanan said for a coach playing in tournaments was important as one could keep abreast of trends and developments.

But Ramesh has a different take on that.

"I stopped playing in professional tournaments from 2008. I spend 10 to 14 hours a day on chess, we have computers and the internet, so keeping abreast of developments is not an issue," Ramesh said.

Ramesh's Chess Gurukul has about hundred students in Chennai and about 400 students the world over who learn online.

"I personally work with around 20 to 25 kids," Ramesh remarked.

He said chess coaching is rewarding if the coach is able to produce good results consistently.

"People who do well will earn well. Law of nature applies here too," he said.

On the trend of many young GMs turning chess coaches to players their age, Ramesh said: "Many strong and young players are not getting jobs as in the past, as most organisations recruiting chess players have few openings."

Such youngsters becoming chess coaches is very good for the game. "They are passionate, have a lot of energy and can work very hard. I am very happy that many young strong players are taking coaching seriously. It will substantially benefit the young generation," Ramesh said.

"Anyhow, there are not many GMs involved in chess coaching. The number is lesser still if it comes to young GMs. Hence there is demand for GMs who get into coaching," Narayanan said.