Nihal Sarin Wins Back-To-Back Tournaments, Enters World's Top 100
16-year-old GM Nihal Sarin has a fantastic month of chess behind him. The Indian prodigy won two strong tournaments in a row in Serbia and gained 35 Elo points, reaching a virtual rating of 2655.
How to watch?
The games of the Silver Lake Open can be found here and the ones from the Serbia Chess Open Masters here on our live events platform.
Now that the open tournaments are returning this summer, a lot of Indian chess players are traveling to Europe to play in these over-the-board events. One of them is Nihal, who managed to win two strong tournaments in a row!
See also IM Rakesh Kulkarni's video on Nihal's success.
Silver Lake Open
Nihal first took part in the Silver Lake Open, held June 23-30 at the Danubia Park Hotel in Veliko Gradiste, Serbia. It was a nine-round Swiss tournament with 131 players, including 15 grandmasters.
Nihal was the third-seeded player, behind two Armenian grandmasters: GM Samvel Ter-Sahakyan and GM Manuel Petrosyan. He was also one of 11 Indian participants, among them the 21-year-old GM Abhimanyu Puranik and the 15-year-old GM Raunak Sadhwani. Both Nihal and Sadhwani are also participants in Chess.com's Junior Speed Chess Championship which is currently underway.
Nihal played a fantastic tournament as he scored seven wins and two draws, good for a 2807(!) performance rating and a 17.4 Elo gain. Let's first look at his game in the very first round, which he won nicely with sacrificial play:
Many young players have learned their attacks and their tactics, but Nihal is showing mature chess as well: the kind where you grind down grandmasters in endgames. With the following win in the final round, he finished a point ahead of the pack:
Silver Lake Open 2021 | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rk. | SNo | Fed | Title | Name | Rtg | TB1 | TB2 | Rp | rtg+/- |
| 1 | 3 | GM | Nihal, Sarin | 2620 | 8,0 | 49,5 | 2807 | 17,4 | |
| 2 | 6 | GM | Sadhwani, Raunak | 2555 | 7,0 | 51,0 | 2660 | 12,5 | |
| 3 | 4 | GM | Puranik, Abhimanyu | 2589 | 7,0 | 48,5 | 2581 | 0,8 | |
| 4 | 11 | IM | Makhnev, Denis | 2480 | 7,0 | 44,5 | 2562 | 9,8 | |
| 5 | 9 | GM | Sadikhov, Ulvi | 2490 | 6,5 | 47,0 | 2516 | 4,5 | |
| 6 | 1 | GM | Ter-Sahakyan, Samvel | 2644 | 6,5 | 46,0 | 2559 | -6,7 | |
| 7 | 18 | IM | Agmanov, Zhandos | 2404 | 6,5 | 46,0 | 2460 | 7,7 | |
| 8 | 10 | IM | Kourkoulos-Arditis, Stamatis | 2485 | 6,5 | 45,5 | 2508 | 3,7 | |
| 9 | 14 | IM | Boskovic, Drasko | 2451 | 6,5 | 45,5 | 2514 | 9,0 | |
| 10 | 13 | IM | Raja, Harshit | 2459 | 6,5 | 44,5 | 2508 | 7,2 | |
| 11 | 7 | GM | Sedlak, Nikola | 2519 | 6,5 | 44,0 | 2516 | 1,3 | |
| 12 | 31 | FM | Vetokhin, Savva | 2324 | 6,5 | 41,5 | 2470 | 35,8 | |
| 13 | 8 | GM | Damljanovic, Branko | 2501 | 6,5 | 39,0 | 2467 | 0,2 | |
| 14 | 19 | IM | Radovanovic, Nikola | 2395 | 6,0 | 48,0 | 2557 | 19,8 | |
| 15 | 5 | GM | Perunovic, Milos | 2567 | 6,0 | 45,0 | 2469 | -7,5 | |
| 16 | 22 | IM | Mullick, Raahil | 2386 | 6,0 | 44,0 | 2445 | 15,8 | |
| 17 | 34 | FM | Pasti, Aron | 2318 | 6,0 | 39,5 | 2260 | -10,0 | |
| 18 | 76 | WFM | Balabayeva, Xeniya | 2116 | 6,0 | 39,5 | 2390 | 127,2 | |
| 19 | 102 | xx | Erdogmus, Yagiz Kaan | 1955 | 6,0 | 39,0 | 2303 | 138,8 | |
| 20 | 20 | IM | Megalios, Konstantinos | 2390 | 5,5 | 46,0 | 2416 | 4,4 |
(Full final standings here.)
Won Silver Lake Open 2021 with 8.0/9. #Akshayakalpa
— Nihal Sarin (@NihalSarin) June 30, 2021
Great results for Indian chess! @NihalSarin @ArjunErigaisi and a big congrats to the Indian origin Abhimanyu Misra on becoming the youngest GM! Nihal is part of the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy and Arjun is a player I follow closely and play training games with.
— Viswanathan Anand (@vishy64theking) July 1, 2021
Serbia Chess Open Masters
The next tournament conveniently took place in Serbia as well, July 2-8 in the capital, Belgrade. The Serbia Chess Open Masters was both stronger and bigger than the first, with 289 participants and 50 grandmasters. This time, there were seven players higher rated than Nihal, including top seeds GM Vladimir Fedoseev, GM Yuriy Kuzubov, and GM Igor Kovalenko.
But he duly won again, with once again not a single loss.
This time, Nihal scored a 2786 performance rating and earned 17.6 rating points, to make a total of 35 points this month. He broke the world's top 100 in the live ratings:
Nihal finished on 7.5/9 and half a point ahead of the rest after holding top seed Fedoseev to a draw in the final round. The day before, he had beaten Kovalenko:
Serbia Chess Open Masters 2021 | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rk. | SNo | Fed | Title | Name | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | TB4 | Rp | rtg+/- |
| 1 | 8 | GM | Nihal, Sarin | 2620 | 7,5 | 0,0 | 46,5 | 40,25 | 6 | 2786 | 17,6 | |
| 2 | 6 | GM | Petrosyan, Manuel | 2632 | 7,0 | 0,0 | 49,5 | 41,00 | 5 | 2719 | 9,7 | |
| 3 | 1 | GM | Fedoseev, Vladimir | 2696 | 7,0 | 0,0 | 49,5 | 39,50 | 6 | 2731 | 4,3 | |
| 4 | 12 | GM | Shevchenko, Kirill | 2605 | 7,0 | 0,0 | 47,5 | 39,25 | 5 | 2730 | 14,4 | |
| 5 | 10 | GM | Bernadskiy, Vitaliy | 2606 | 7,0 | 0,0 | 47,5 | 39,00 | 5 | 2636 | 3,9 | |
| 6 | 45 | GM | Sadikhov, Ulvi | 2490 | 7,0 | 0,0 | 45,0 | 34,25 | 6 | 2699 | 24,1 | |
| 7 | 21 | GM | Erigaisi, Arjun | 2567 | 7,0 | 0,0 | 44,5 | 37,00 | 6 | 2670 | 11,1 | |
| 8 | 32 | GM | Iskandarov, Misratdin | 2533 | 7,0 | 0,0 | 44,5 | 33,75 | 6 | 2679 | 17,2 | |
| 9 | 30 | GM | Warmerdam, Max | 2535 | 7,0 | 0,0 | 43,5 | 37,00 | 6 | 2648 | 12,5 | |
| 10 | 64 | IM | Aditya, Mittal | 2438 | 7,0 | 0,0 | 40,0 | 33,00 | 6 | 2626 | 21,2 | |
| 11 | 29 | GM | Aleksandrov, Aleksej | 2535 | 6,5 | 0,0 | 49,5 | 37,50 | 4 | 2653 | 14,8 | |
| 12 | 4 | GM | Ter-Sahakyan, Samvel | 2643 | 6,5 | 0,0 | 47,5 | 36,75 | 4 | 2644 | 1,0 | |
| 13 | 13 | GM | Safarli, Eltaj | 2604 | 6,5 | 0,0 | 46,0 | 34,50 | 4 | 2612 | 2,1 | |
| 14 | 18 | GM | Asadli, Vugar | 2574 | 6,5 | 0,0 | 45,5 | 34,25 | 5 | 2603 | 4,0 | |
| 15 | 52 | IM | Nikitenko, Mihail | 2472 | 6,5 | 0,0 | 45,5 | 33,25 | 4 | 2673 | 24,5 | |
| 16 | 47 | IM | Kourkoulos-Arditis, Stamatis | 2485 | 6,5 | 0,0 | 44,5 | 33,00 | 6 | 2622 | 16,5 | |
| 17 | 49 | IM | Makhnev, Denis | 2480 | 6,5 | 0,0 | 44,0 | 33,50 | 5 | 2620 | 17,0 | |
| 18 | 109 | FM | Damjanovic, Vuk | 2369 | 6,5 | 0,0 | 43,5 | 30,25 | 6 | 2487 | 25,6 | |
| 19 | 15 | GM | Puranik, Abhimanyu | 2589 | 6,5 | 0,0 | 42,5 | 33,50 | 5 | 2551 | -2,6 | |
| 20 | 7 | GM | Pichot, Alan | 2630 | 6,5 | 0,0 | 42,5 | 29,75 | 6 | 2554 | -6,2 |
(Full final standings here.)
With such rapid progress, Nihal seems destined to become the next Indian 2700 grandmaster. You can see him in action on Saturday, Saturday, July 10 at 11 a.m. Pacific / 20:00 Central Europe here on Chess.com, when he will play his round of 16 match of the Junior Speed Chess Championship against GM Nicolas Checa.
Super super tired but happy. Long way to go. Excited! #Akshayakalpa pic.twitter.com/0V2b1Bcb5K
— Nihal Sarin (@NihalSarin) July 8, 2021
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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