Shreyas Royal was about eight when he first seriously thought that he could be a grandmaster. That dream came true after the Indian-origin British player achieved his third and final grandmaster norm at the British Chess Championship in August after five narrow misses over various tournaments in the past year.
The 15-year-old thus becomes the UK’s youngest-ever grandmaster beating the previously-held record of GM David Howell. Born in Bengaluru, Shreyas’ family moved to the UK when he was just a kid. Over the past few years, Shreyas, along with another Indian-origin prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan, has become the face of British chess.
“When I started playing chess, the first thing you hear about the sport is that there are titles like grandmasters. I thought to myself, I want to be a grandmaster one day. But I only started seriously thinking that I could become a GM when I was eight or nine after I had come joint first in the European age group chess championship,” Shreyas tells The Indian Express at the Friend’s House in London where he was invited to make the ceremonial first move in matches on the third day of the Global Chess League. Shreyas made the first move for the clash between Ganges Grandmasters’ Viswanathan Anand and PBG Alaskan Knights’ Anish Giri.
“The thing that I liked about the sport from the start was winning. I was good at winning, I liked winning. I started out playing against my father and others from my school. Somehow I just felt at home in the sport. I’ve always been quite fascinated by the game, by the fact that after the fourth move there are more moves possible than there are atoms in the universe,” he adds.
Shreyas’ journey to the GM norm, although fast, has been anything but smooth. Since chess has not been designated as a sport in the UK, corporate sponsorship is hard to come by. And, contrary to popular perception, chess is an eye-wateringly expensive pursuit at the elite level.
“To achieve this GM title, we sacrificed a lot. Till he became an International Master, we invested all our savings. We went into debt and at one point, we thought it would not be possible for him to continue chasing this dream of becoming a GM because I didn’t have any more savings. We must have spent one or two crore rupees on his career so far. We used to have only one property in Bengaluru which we sold in 2022 and then invested all the money into his career,” says Shreyas’ father Jitendra. “Thankfully, the CEO of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, came forward and supported his journey in his personal capacity till he became a GM. The costs at the top level are massive. To travel to play at a single tournament, it can cost at least 1000 to 1500 pounds. That’s the minimum you need to spend on travel, stay, food etc. And then to get elite trainers to help you, you again spend a lot per month. Now the challenge is that he needs good coaches who work full-time with him. We’re now looking at sponsors for him to take the next steps in his career.”
Astrologer’s prediction and the story behind the name
Nothing in the family history had suggested a possible inclination towards chess but the mother Anju Singh had great faith in an astrological prediction made when the boy was born. “He was a Panditji from Orissa where we had made his kundli. Shreyas was born on 9th January 2009 and panditji had said that 9 is very lucky and the timing of his birth and other things suggest he would earn name and fame. I had no clue in which area but that prediction had stayed in my mind,” Anju had told this newspaper.
Even the name “Royal” has a history behind it. “The astrologer had told her that last name should phonetically start from ‘Raa’ and she thought a lot. We are Rajputs and she came up with Royal,” the father said. And Anju added, “Some people think that it was a name we added after coming here but it was all done in India.”
How Shreyas finally became a GM
Shreyas had an excellent start to the British Chess Championship, beating David Howell, whose record as the youngest British GM he broke, with black pieces. And in the next round, while he was doing really well against the eventual British champion Gawain Jones he made the fatal mistake of accepting a draw in what he calls a “completely winning position” with white pieces.
“That was a total meltdown. From there my tournament started going badly. In the next round I lost a game I should not have lost. By the end, I felt like I was losing steam. Before the start of the tournament I was thinking about winning the whole thing and becoming the British champion. That match shifted my focus from becoming British champion to just getting my third GM norm.
“It was quite clear to me it was a psychological block that I had. It just kept on happening, kept on happening. I thought it would happen again at the British Chess Championship. It almost didn’t happen in this event as well. In the last round, I was paired with Mickey Adams and was to play him with black pieces. All I needed was a draw but I was very annoyed with the pairing because I was playing against a legend. I could have gotten other pairings. In that game, at some point, I was completely outclassed. But I showed resilience and tricked him to get a draw in the end. But for so much time during that game, I was thinking to myself ‘oh, it’s happening again! I need to work on this! This is the sixth time it’s happening.’ I started to have thoughts like ‘Am I even going to become a grandmaster in this event?’ and ‘How have I done this again!’” recounts Shreyas.
He adds: “But it was probably written in the stars somewhere that I would become a GM here. Now that this psychological block is out of the way, I think I can show my true potential, my true standard.”
