Vantika Agrawal interview: Arjuna Awardee targets grandmaster title, top 10 spot in 2025

“I can become a grandmaster this year. I’m planning to play a lot of tournaments. My rating is 2411 right now, so I need 89 more rating points (to get to 2500). The plan is to play more and more tournaments and practice every day for at least six to seven hours. I’m sure that if I just keep working at this pace, I’ll become a grandmaster in 2025,” Vantika Agrawal told The Indian Express from New York after the FIDE World rapid and Blitz Championship.

“Besides becoming a grandmaster, I also want to reach the top 10 in the women’s rankings list and play in the FIDE World Cup, and I want to qualify for the Women’s Candidates,” said the current world no 39 as she rattled off her to-do list for 2025.

Besides Vantika Agrawal, another international master, Divya Deshmukh, who won a gold medal on the third board for India at the Olympiad, is vying to become a grandmaster in 2025. This sets up the prospect of an exciting race between Divya and Vantika to follow in the heels of Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli and Vaishali Rameshbabu. The race to be India’s fourth woman to become a grandmaster.

Vantika Agrawal’s top hits

Winning a gold medal on the fourth board for India at the Budapest Chess Olympiad, which helped the Indian women claim team gold, was just the headline act of Vantika Agrawal’s 2024. She scored 7.5 out of a possible 9 with a 2550+ rating performance. Then, at the recent Tata Steel India Rapid and Blitz tournament, she ended third in both events — solo third in rapid and joint third in blitz — ahead of much vaunted compatriots like Humpy, Harika, Vaishali and Divya. The rapid portion saw her finish ahead of even international heavy-hitters like Alexandra Kosteniuk and Kateryna Lagno.

Then at the Qatar Masters event, she put on another show (her tournament rating was over 2500): she drew three players who were ranked in the Top 100 and then beat Indian grandmaster Prraneeth Vuppala.

Vantika Agrawal contemplates her next move at Kolkata’s Dhono Dhanyo Auditorium during the Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz tournament. (Express photo by Partha Paul)

Not surprisingly, Vantika Agrawal was named for the prestigious Arjuna Award this year.

“Winning the Arjuna Award is just incredible. I feel on top of the world to receive such an honor. I’m glad that I could win by playing well and bring home two gold medals for India at the Olympiad,” Vantika Agrawal said. “The Chess Olympiad was the main highlight for me of 2024: winning double golds, individual as well as the team gold. Then, the Tata Steel event was pretty good. I was the best performing Indian player there in both Rapid and Blitz. And Qatar was also pretty good. I could have actually won it after I started very well. In the first three games there, I drew with 2650+ players, who were all in the top 100.”

Talking about the Olympiad, where she started her run, Vantika Agrawal admitted there was some pressure of expectations in Budapest. The Indian women’s team was the top seed in the women’s section while the other Indian team competing at Budapest, the one with players like Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi in their ranks, was seeded only second in the open section. There was also the baggage of history at the Olympiad, because the Indian women’s team had come perilously close to winning the gold at the Chennai 2022 edition two years back, but had ended with a bronze. At that event, the young Vantika was with the second Indian team which ended 8th in the final standings. Since then, both Vantika and Divya have earned themselves a promotion into the main women’s team, and fittingly both won golds on their individual boards at Budapest.

“At the Olympiad, I didn’t expect too much. I just wanted to give the best for my team and not take too much pressure. Of course we were the top seeds. So we were expected to win a medal and play very well. I didn’t let that pressure come, the pressure did not affect my game. I’m glad that I could perform when the team needed me the most,” said Vantika Agrawal.

Among the turning points in her fledgling career, Vantika Agrawal counts an event from 2012 called the Swami Vivekanand Mahila Chess Mahotsav, where thousands of female chess players from India were invited. At that event in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar, the nine-year-old Vantika was felicitated on stage by the then chief minister of the state Narendra Modi because she had won twin golds at the Asian Championships.

“That was a massive event. I was just nine years old but when I was felicitated on stage, that was the moment which was the fuel to keep winning. Ab aur jeetna hi jeetna hai (I need to keep winning),” Vantika Agrawal recently recalled.

In a few weeks’ time when the 22 year-old Vantika accepts the Arjuna Award from President Droupadi Murmu, that feeling — ab aur jeetna hi jeetna hai — will be fueled even further.