Manorama Sports Star 2022: Young knight Narayanan makes giant strides

When S L Narayanan joined Mar Ivanios College to pursue his Bachelor's degree after scoring full marks (1200 out of 1200) in the Plus Two public examinations, Sanju Samson was a third-year degree student at the same college.

Although Narayanan had informed the college authorities beforehand that he would not be able to attend classes regularly as would have to participate in chess tournaments, he got the admission without any hassle, thanks to his perfect grades.

While Sanju was grabbing eyeballs with his exploits on the cricket field, Narayanan was conquering new heights in the chess world, albeit without any fanfare.

The 25-year-old Grand Master from Thiruvananthapuram, one of the six shortlisted nominees for the Manorama Sports Star Award 2022, climbed up the rungs of success in the game of sixty-four squares, capturing many international titles and earning a spot in the India 'A' team.

Despite being one of the top ten chess players in India, Narayanan remains humble and grounded. "The year 2022 has been a great one for me. My game has improved a lot over the last couple of years. I need to improve my decision-making skills under psychological and time pressure while facing a tough endgame situation," he says.

Narayanan has been on a winning spree last year. In May, he won the Grandiscacchi Cattolica International Open held in Italy, followed by the title in the 23rd Sant International Chess Tournament in Spain. He was also a member of the India 'A' team which finished fourth at the Chess Olympiad in Chennai.

In October, Narayanan scored an unbeaten 7/9 to win the Fagernes Grand Master Open Chess 2022 Championship held in Norway. Before that, he had finished second in the Teplice Open 2022 held in the Czech Republic. In the Bangladesh Open, Narayanan anchored his team - SAIF Sporting Club - to victory with a staggering 8.5/10. He was also part of the Indian team which won a bronze at the FIDE World Team Championship hosted by Israel in November.

"I'm glad that I could perform well in the World Team Championship. The Indian team also had Vidit Gujrathi, Nihal Sarin, K Sasikiran, Abhijeet Gupta, and S P Sethuraman. We were hopeful of winning the gold, but we couldn’t pull it off. I was able to defeat France's Laurent Fressinet, USA's Vladimir Akopian, and Uzbekistan's Shamsiddin Vokhidov. I also managed to hold Alexei Shirov, one of the greatest tacticians of all time, to a draw. I believe that I could capitalise on important moments and justify the trust reposed in me by team captain Vaibhav Suri," says Narayanan, who is currently ranked 69th in the world.

Recently, Narayanan has been rewarded for his excellent show in the Asian Continental Chess Championship 2022 with a place in the Indian team for the 2023 World Chess Championship.

"My present ELO rating is 2669 and I hope to cross the coveted 2700 mark this year. As it is important to remain physically fit, I go to gym regularly," says Narayanan, who currently plays for SV Deggendorf in the Bundesliga Chess League.