Coaches
GM Ankit Rajpara
GM Ankit, a former student of our mentor GM Ramesh, has been with Chess Gurukul for the past 2+years contributing more in the Online classes. Ankit has many awards and accolades to add flavors to his exciting chess career. To name a few he was a Asian Youth U-16 Chess Championship (Bronze ) 2010 in Delhi, Asian Youth Team Gold Medal in 2009 and 2010. Asian Youth U-14 Chess Championship Bronze Medal 2009 in China. World Youth U-14 Chess Championship Team Gold Medal 2008 in Vietnam. Asian Youth U-14 Chess Championship (Bronze) 2008 in Iran. Commonwealth U-12 Chess Championship (Bronze) Medal 2006 in India. Many of his students have won awards in the recent times.
FM Kunal M
Kunal is a FIDE Master in Chess. He had a peak rating 2394. He is a former Tamil Nadu Senior State Champion (twice) and won more than 25 International Fide Rating Tournaments. He has been coaching for 5 years in Chess Gurukul. His students won medals in various events. Children come with all different skill levels and he works diligently to help them improve. In addition to his credentials, He believes a good coach is on a continuous learning journey. Therefore, he works and examines the latest trends in chess.
GM Sundarajan Kidambi
Kidambi is with Chessgurukul for the past 3 years training online kids. A Grandmaster since 2009, India's 19th and TN 6th, National Junior Champion for the year 1999 and again in 2002. He was a member of the Asian team that won the gold medal in the year 2005. Kidambi also won International Opens such as - Badalona in 2008, Barcelona in 2015, La fere 2013..
IM Raahul V S
Vivekanathan M
Vivek is a FIDE certified National Instructor and a rated player with a peak rating of 1772. He had won many awards from various national level competitions from age 3. He is also a certified Arbiter for matches held at state level. He had been training many children from countries across the world and have 8+ years of teaching experience. He is a passionate trainer who teaches his students with full involvement and interactive ways with fun and excitement. His aim is to take children to the helm of chess thereby improving their creativity, capacity and originality. He encourages his wards to take up chess as special profession apart from their regular curriculum by his eminent preparation. He has been teaching various students from beginners to rated players individually as well as groups in our Chess Gurukul Academy.
WFM Harshini A
WFM Harshini is an active tutor in Chess Gurukul for the past few months now. She is a silver medalist in Asian Youth Under - 18 girls and also has one Women International Master (WIM) norm currently. She was awarded Women Fide master (WFM) title. Harshini also Won Tamil Nadu women's state chess championship and won several other categories in Tamil Nadu state championship. She also won won the World School U-15 girls title and is also the Silver medalist in Commonwealth U-16 girls chess championship.
Usha Rohini M
Fide rated 1176, has an experience of 12 years as a chess trainer. She’s an enthusiastic player. She has been with Chessgurukul training young children for the last 5years. She has trained more than 100 students in the startup batch for Chessgurukul. She’s a very passionate teacher with whom students connect very well. She also has 8 years of experience teaching chess in schools.
Samrat Ghorai
Samrat Ghorai, currently holding a rating of 1889 with the peak rating of 2108. He is a MBA graduate and a full time Coach. He has been teaching chess since 2014 and was also been part of chess Gurukul since 2022. He sets my modules according to the strengths and weaknesses of a particular student and following it in accordance to the number of sessions. Guiding them for tournaments, improvising their strengths, improving their weaknesses are the core things to be deal with. Many of my students has got rating recently in India as well as in abroad. Samrat is a state group chess championship, was national under 9 runner up in the year 2003, Won in IIFL in open category, Mumbai in 2018-19. He was a joint 6th in Asian youth u10 2004 (Singapore), joint 3rd in Asian youth u10 2005(Delhi). Also won the Bangladesh second division league champion, 2017. Runner up in 2018.
Vivek
Vivek is a Certified FIDE National Instructor who has a peak FIDE Rating of 1898. He has produced 40 FIDE rated players during his career as trainer in an international school. He represented our country in the Amateur world and Asian championships. Having Played in 14 countries he had gained a vast knowledge of chess culture in various parts of the world. He had been the manager for Indian Chess Olympiad coaching camp. His chess Gurukul students have won many medals in state and national level championships here in India and abroad.
Muthukumar
Muthukumar was an Engineer by career for few years and due to his inner passion for chess he quit his job and became one of the chess coaches in our academy. He has a Peak FIDE rating of 1641. He is an energetic person and training kids for past 6 years. Now via online, he trains a lot of students ranging from beginner to players to rated players above 1000. His rich experience and excellent Coaching has borne many fruits in the form of medals by many of his students in state, national and international championships
Jagadhambal
Jagadha is one of our experienced coaches, who currently have a FIDE rating of 1935. She had taken part in a lot of national championship at her early age. She trains young minds in an instructive way and enjoys every moment of teaching and sharing knowledge. Her students Archit Kannan, Dananjey, Lakshana, Muthu, Pragnya, Fathima have secured many notable achievements in various state, national and international events.
Vijayalakshmi Thirunagasundaram
Viji has been working as a chess coach since she finished her school days. A former Madurai division champion, Teaching is her passion and she loves to engage with kids. Chess has no age restrictions. Kids starting from age 5 to even 60+ can learn chess. she had been working in Cognizant for more than 5 years before she joined Chess Gurukul. An engineer by profession and Chess is her passion. She is well known for her efficient teaching methods, punctuality and responses. She loves to be a Chess coach ever.
Vishnu
Vishnu is an MBA graduate who had been working in a bank for 2 years since Chess interested him more he moved on to work in an International School to work as a chess coach for couple of year later he joined Chess Gurukul since then he has worked on a few projects for Gurukul and has been training students online. Vishnu holds Fide rating of 1500 and is a 5 time district champion and also has represented TamilNadu in the National Amateur Championship. His students have been excelling in several tournaments globally.
Hari Raj K
Hari is a passionate chess player & coach with a Career-high FIDE rating of 1737. He was Runner up in Sri Lankan International Open Tournament 2013. He had represented India in the Asian Junior Chess Tournament. His students had won Medals in Commonwealth and Western Asia age category championships. Chess Gurukul is happy to have him as one of our prominent coaches.
WFM Ruttumbara Bidhar
WFM Ruttumbara Bidhar is a passionate and fun-loving chess trainer, with a rating of 1952. She is a Women FIDE Master, has an International Woman Master norm. She is an International Chess Player who had traveled to various countries and won various medals in International competitions. Her achievements include several Gold, Silver, Bronze medalist in several state, National, Commonwealth, Asian Youth, World Youth chess championships in her respective categories (20-25 medals). She is good in analyzing and teaching opening line, assisting and following the student with a personalized homework routine, working on student's calculation and visualization abilities.
Senthil
Coach Senthil is a FIDE Instructor, Arbiter and FIDE Rated international Player with a Peak rating of 2084. He started training students in 2001. He is an M.B.A., M.Sc. (Psychology) Graduate. His passion towards Chess made him fully committed to this sport. He is undertaking chess classes for Beginners and Intermediate players. A bunch of his students had won District and State level tournaments and his students mostly have decent FIDE Rating and also they have won rating category prizes.
Swathi Priyadharshini
Swathi Priyadharshini is young, diligent and proficient coach who engages the kids with the game in a lovely way and gives corrections without resentment. She is also a aspiring CA student and a degree holder... Both her father and mother are fide rated chess coaches which helped her to quickly gain effective playing and coaching skills. She has two years of coaching experience in various schools in chennai,and has a rating of 1076, now currently working as a chess coach in chess gurukul molding young minds in the ancient game.
Nandhakumar K
Nandha is a FIDE rated chess coach with over 10 years of experience. With current rating of 1860. A former Bharathiyar University Champion and National competitor himself, Nandhakumar has extensive experience training young players. He has played 500+ FIDE rated games in competitive levels. He has coached over 100+ students to achieve FIDE and USCF ratings, transforming beginners into rated players and nurturing young talent to championship levels. Notably, he has coached a National Champion in the U-09 category and consistently produces State Champions in Tamil Nadu.
G Kesavan
G Kesavan is a FIDE Rated International chess player with a peak rating of 1664 and He is a certified State Arbiter. He achieved 1st place in district championships more than 10 times got a title around 10 times in state-level tournaments and won the title in a National level Intercollegiate tournament. He represented the Bharathiar University team thrice in the south zone. He has teaching experience of more than 5 years and his students won prizes in most of the district and state level competitions.
Shashank Udupa
A FIDE Certified International Instructor and an AICF Certified CIS Instructor, developed a love for chess at the tender age of 5. Following his graduation as a Software Engineer, his profound interest for the game led him to venture into chess tutoring, considering it a privilege to potentially shape the future of young minds. A former SGFI National Semi-Finalist, South-Zone & University State Gold Medalist, and District Champion, Mr. Udupa holds a standard FIDE Rating of 1548 with an AFM title. His students have achieved remarkable success at state and national levels under his guidance. With an ultimate goal to bring chess to every household globally, his three and a half years of association with Chess Gurukul have marked a significant step towards realizing this vision.
Chethan Kowdinya
Chethan is a FIDE Certified National Instructor with a FIDE rating of 1891. He is also an AICF-certified Senior National Arbiter. He has been teaching chess for the past 10 years. He develops study modules based on each student's strengths and weaknesses and applies them in line with the child's learning capacity. The primary goals are to assist them through contests, enhance their skills, and fix their inadequacies.
Ujjawal Patel
Ujjawal Patel is a MBA graduate, has been part of ChessGurukul for over 2+years. He began his chess journey in 2012, winning more than five district-level tournaments, as well as joined state-level competitions, and representing his state at the national level 2016-2018 . In 2019, he captained the Banaras Hindu University chess team. During the lockdown, Ujjawal started his teaching career. Known for his creative approach to explaining difficult topics, he strives to create a healthy classroom environment that enables learners to focus and perform at their best.