Aditya Samant becomes India's 83rd chess Grandmaster

Aditya S Samant on Wednesday became India's 83rd chess Grandmaster.

The 17-year old Samant, an International Master, became a GM when he started his ninth round game against compatriot Aryan Chopra at the BielChess MTO 2023 tournament.

He had drawn from his eighth round game against Bu Xiangzhi and needed to achieve his final GM norm by playing the ninth round, no matter the result.

Maharashtra player Samant had already crossed the 2500 Elo mark in the live ratings and had obtained two GM norms, Hence, the third and final norm was all he needed to become India's latest Grandmaster.

To become a GM, a player has to secure three GM norms and cross the live rating of 2,500 Elo points.

His live rating going into the ninth round game is 2525.4.

He earned his first GM norm at the Abu Dhabi Masters in August last year. He secured his second GM norm at the 3rd El Llobregat Open in December 2022.

The Twitter handle of the Biel Chess Festival said in a post, "Exciting! Congratulations to Aditya Samant S!#BielChess seems to be a good place to crown Indian Grandmasters! - 2021 it was @HarshitRaja1 who earned his 3rd GM-norm in Biel - 2022 it was @GMPranavAnand who earned his 3rd GM-norm in Biel - and 2023 now Aditya Samant S!"

Telangana's V Prraneeth had in May become the country's 82nd GM.