‘India’s Got Latent’ Gambit? Behind Vantika Agrawal’s double bronze at Chess Olympiad | Exclusive | Chess News
NEW DELHI: The 46th edition of the Chess Olympiad in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand, like usual, had just one rest day, after Round 6. Consequently, India’s Vantika Agrawal, who had beaten US chess legend Irina Krush in that sixth-round matchup on Board 3, ended up with three days away from the board anyway — the scheduled rest day, plus two more rounds where she was kept off the lineup by captain Swayams Mishra, against Germany and Kazakhstan.Too much chess prep over those first two days had left Vantika looking for an escape on the third. Samay Raina’s popular show ‘India’s Got Latent’ came to her rescue. She binge-watched the latest episodes on her third day off, then returned to the board the next day and clinched a win over Uzbekistan’s Nilufarkhon Imomkuzieva in her Round 9 matchup.“Usually I don’t watch that much, because you don’t get the time. You prepare in the morning, then at night you’re checking your opponent and discussing, then preparing again in the morning. By the afternoon you have a game, and you’re tired. But this time, with the rest day plus two more days off, I had a lot of time, and I thought I’d practised so much chess already; let me relax a bit. So I watched some India’s Got Latent episodes,” she told TimesofIndia.com.Asked if she enjoyed it, there was no hesitation. “Yes, of course,” she added. “I’d watched earlier episodes too, and then the new one there. It’s nice. You just relax a bit.”Vantika ended her campaign with a score of 6/8, five wins to her name, and an individual bronze medal in India women’s bronze-clinching campaign. It’s the quieter of India’s two medal stories from this Olympiad, and arguably the more interesting one to hear told from the inside.“I think it was good,” she said of the experience overall. “I mean, of course, last time I won double gold. So this time also, we went for the gold, and it wasn’t like we planned. We lost at the start to Poland. It wasn’t as smooth as last year. But I’m glad that we won a lot of games and had a comeback, and managed to end on the podium; after a setback, we were able to come back and keep going. I think that was really important.”
The one that got away
If there’s a single result Vantika would look back with some disappointment, it’s the Round 10 draw against China that effectively ended India’s gold-medal hopes. The 24-year-old lost her game to Lu Miaoyi on Board 3, with the team setting for a 2-2 draw.“I was especially very upset about my game against China,” the International Master (IM) admitted. “I think I was playing quite well, and after 40 moves it was very drawish. There were a lot of ways to make a draw. But somehow I was playing for a win at that moment. I knew my position wasn’t better, but I decided to play for a win. Because of that, I made some foolish decisions.”Part of the problem, she explained, was not knowing the full picture elsewhere. “At that moment it wasn’t clear that we were winning on the fourth board, or I would have just gone for a draw. I was not sure what was happening on that board, and I thought I would play for a win,” she recalled.
Vantika Agrawal (on right) during the game against China (Photo by Rafal Oleksiewicz for FIDE)
“Except for my loss against China, I think it was pretty good. Before that, I was on 5.5 out of 6. I had almost won all my games. If not for that loss, I would have even got an individual gold on board.“I won against Krush. Then, after three days of rest, I won against an Uzbek player, also quite strong. So I think it was good, except one game I wasn’t happy about.”Shaking off a bad result, she said, came down to a fairly simple discipline as she added, “I think it was just to focus on the next game, and not really think about what had already happened.”
A team built for the challenges
Vantika credited the dressing room, and Mishra specifically, for how the team absorbed the Poland loss and kept pushing.“They all were very nice. Humpy (Koneru) was playing so well on board, Divya (Deshmukh), Savitha (Shri). Everyone was playing well. I think it can be seen that, in the end, we all won individual medals on our board,” she remarked.“We were kind of prepared for that, because last year also we lost to Poland and had that setback. So we were prepared that if something goes wrong, we will come together and fight as a team.”
Vantika Agrawal against US chess legend Irina Krush (FIDE Photo)
That same candour extended to the one selection question hanging over the campaign, which was Vaishali Rameshbabu’s dip in form, which saw her dropped for the final rounds.“She is so strong she won the Candidates and is now the World Championship challenger. If she was in her full form, we would have easily crushed everyone. Those little chances that other teams got, like Poland, I don’t think they would have got — we’d be winning on all boards,” Vantika said.Asked whether the team dwells on these swings and misses while they’re actually happening, Vantika was clear that they deliberately don’t.“I don’t think we really think about that. Everyone tries to focus just on their own game, and our coach decides who plays, who doesn’t, so that everything goes well. We don’t think that much about these things,” she added.“Last time we had crushed everyone. We were 7 on 7, winning every game, not giving anyone a chance. This time it wasn’t the same, even though we went with our best team. So the difficult part was accepting that every time you can’t win gold, you can’t crush everyone. It happens. That acceptance. That was difficult.”
The IM looking to make a mark in elite circuit
When she was asked why she had been less visible on the elite circuit, Vantika Agrawal, already an Arjuna Awardee, was quick to push back on the perception that hers had been a quiet year outside the Olympiad bubble.“I’m not invited to these top tournaments where the other girls, Humpy, Vaishali, Divya, are playing,” she told this website. “But it’s not that I’m not active. I’m playing a lot of open tournaments, and I’d say I’m more active than them. If you check my profile, I’ve played more games than any of them. It’s just that I’m not playing in the tournaments everyone covers.”“My rating is a bit low, and it’s not easy to increase — even when I play very well, I gain maybe five or seven rating points. It’s not easy to reach that level, and only once you reach it do you get invited to those tournaments,” she further noted.
Vantika Agrawal at Chess Olympiad (FIDE Photo)
“This year I beat Song Yuxin; she played board two for China, in an open tournament. I beat Aditya Mittal too, who’s over 2600 and hadn’t lost a game all year before that — he just lost to me.”There was a touch of frustration in how she recalled one particular near-miss for recognition.“In the Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz in January, I tied for first place in Blitz, tied with Carissa Yip. But nobody covered that. It’s just not being covered,” she added with some disappointment.Whatever the coverage gap, Vantika insists it hasn’t dented her own sense of where she stands and what she is aiming for — a Grandmaster (GM) title.“I already feel confident, and I’m continuously working. It didn’t change much after this Olympiad. I just want to focus on my goals and not think too much about all this,” she added. “I’ll continue playing more tournaments, trying to improve my skills and my level.”
Life after the board, and 2027
Looking to 2027, her plan is a continuation rather than a reinvention. “I think I’ll be doing the same thing, playing these open tournaments and trying to increase my rating, and see how it pans out,” she admitted.ALSO READ: ‘Sometimes in chess, there are just these blind spots’: Nihal Sarin looks back at his Chess Olympiad loss to Uzbekistan | ExclusiveHer studies, meanwhile, are largely settled. “I’ve completed my B.Com Honours. I was at SRCC College, Delhi University. After that, I’ve been focusing more on chess, because I had exams in December that clashed with tournaments I really wanted to play. Right now, I’m completely focused on chess, but I’ll keep the option open; if I want, I’ll do my Master’s or an MBA.”
