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NEW DELHI: Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, felt like his wait was almost over. Nearly a decade after the end of the ten-year Trojan War, he and his crew were finally within reach of home, only to find themselves on the brink of losing all hope of ever returning. “All my companions have perished, and I remain,” says an exhausted Odysseus at one point in Homer’s ancient Greek epic The Odyssey. But, even in his darkest moments of despair and doubt, he never abandons his longing to see Ithaca again.Rathanvel VS, like Odysseus, felt like he was within touching distance of his destiny, the elusive title of Grandmaster (GM) in this case, only to see it elude him again and again. “I probably could have become a grandmaster four years ago,” he told TimesofIndia.com during an exclusive interview. He didn’t have to wait for the norms. He collected them with ease. What he had been waiting for for four and a half years was the number: 2500. The Elo rating that turns the norm of a grandmaster into an actual grandmaster.On Saturday, in Assam, he finally crossed it.“You know that feeling when you know you’re worth it but somehow you’re still not getting there,” added an elated and perhaps relieved Rathanvel from Guwahati on his first visit to northeast India.Now he doesn’t have to wonder anymore. Rathanvel VS is the 99th Indian Grandmaster.
A chessboard that comes free
There was no great chess lineage in the Rathanvel household in Coimbatore. I got Horlicks or Complan, I don’t remember which, when I was six or seven, he said. “And they gave me a chess board for free, so I kind of started pestering my mother to play with me.”What started as a child pestering his mother for free boarding turned, in time, into enrolling in a nearby academy under two local coaches, Krishnamoorthy and Dhansekar, names Rathanvel still owes true gratitude to.“To this day I am very grateful to them,” he said.The climb that followed was not a straight line. By 2019, he had passed 2400 and picked up four IM norms at the Abu Dhabi Masters.
By September 2021, at the First Saturday tournament in Hungary, he had his first GM norm, and what is interesting, his second one came in the same month, at Vezerkepzo GM-MIX. The third followed in 2022.On paper, Rathanvel has done everything a player needs to become a grandmaster. He just didn’t have the ratings to go with it.
Stuck on the edge
What followed was less straight than a loop. “Whenever I’m like 2496, 2497, I’ll be one win away and all of a sudden there’s too much pressure or something, and I’m just making mistakes in winning away games,” Rathanvel revealed.“Once a slip happens, it just keeps going. I’m bleeding fifteen, twenty points a piece, and then I fix it, come back. It’s been kind of a pattern.“It was very depressing at times. I had sleep loss and a lot of things related to that.”The injury and the circumstances made the wait difficult. He broke his arm twice. COVID stopped international travel just when it was in full swing.College, a degree in mechanical engineering from Hindustan College, Coimbatore, pulled focus during the strain that the 2001-born might otherwise have spent chasing ratings.During his pursuit of the 2500 rating figure, the lowest point he achieved was in 2025, in a match against David Paravyan in Abu Dhabi.“I knew I was winning. But I kind of just started confusing things and I knew things were getting out of hand,” he said. “It was actually very heartbreaking. At one point I also felt that maybe I should take a longer break and then try something else.”It’s not. Instead, on July 1 this year, ranked 2492, he traveled to Assam for two rating tournaments.He deliberately entered rounds against lower-ranked opponents, players below 1600, and simply did not lose. Ten consecutive victories. Eight Elo points. The number he had been chasing for four and a half years finally clicked.
Happiness, but not so much…
“Any chess player, if he is from a very rich background, will not have financial problems. But in general, people who are not from such a background tend to have problems,” he told this website.“I was very lucky in this case. MPL, the Mobile Premier League, offered me sponsorship. They supported me from 2019 to 2025.”In an event organized by the MPL called Chess Mahayudh, Rathanvel played for twelve hours non-stop, from 10 am to 10 pm, against a series of opponents, defeating a grandmaster and drawing five others along the way, finishing with 256 wins from 265 games and the tournament’s top prize of 5 lakh rupees.
However, this support did not last. The Indian government’s ban on real-money gaming platforms last year hit MPL directly, and the funding that carried Rathanvela through some of its toughest years ended.Behind that financial lifeline is also a family that runs its own small business. His father Sivakumar and mother Senthil Vadivu run a wedding card printing company in Coimbatore. His younger brother, Rohith, is a lawyer.On the chess side, Rathanvel’s coaching circle later expanded beyond his first academy, with prestigious mentors such as GM Vishnu Prasanna, GM Srinath Narayanan, GM Sundararajan Kidambi and GM Shyam Sundar all working with him in the years since.
What comes after the wait?
Sitting in Assam just after the title was confirmed, Rathanvel described the feeling as less elation than escape. “It’s actually kind of a sense of accomplishment, because it’s been dragging on for four and a half years,” he said.“Deep down I’m happy, but I’m actually at a loss for words to explain how I feel.”Asked what drove him to do so, he did not point to ambitions or ranking.“When I saw the way my parents hoped I would cross that line, that was the only thing that kept me going,” he said. “It also kind of gives you a sense of fulfillment and completion. That’s something that was missing, but luckily I was able to get things done today.”He’s realistic about what title GM changes and what he doesn’t. He knows that high-end invitation-only events are still out of reach.“I’m not sure if I’m going to get it, because when you put in 2,650 or something above that, you’re going to be selected for those events,” he said. “But in general, when you become a grandmaster, the organizers easily focus on you, and you get accommodation and other things, which kind of reduces your financial burden.”READ ALSO: India got its 98th GM! Both Parents Chess Coaches 10th Board Exam Forced Pause: Creation of Aswath S He already teaches chess online as a freelance teacher, and his own academy, he says, is in preparation.“I can’t say that I will leave chess,” he said when asked if the sport is a career or something more temporary. “My life may revolve around chess.”
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