India has another 18-year-old world champion on the 64 squares after D Gukesh. On Friday in Petrovac, Montenegro, Grandmaster Pranav Venkatesh emerged victorious in the open section of the 2025 World Junior Chess Championship. In the open section, the teenager from Chennai defeated 157 players from 63 countries, including 12 grandmasters, to win the trophy.
Pranav finished the tournament with a score of nine out of eleven points, his defining moment coming in a draw with Matic Lavrencic.
If the open and girls divisions are taken into account, Pranav is the seventh Indian world junior champion. In 1987, Viswanathan Anand became the first Indian to win the world junior chess championship.
Koneru Humpy (2001 world junior girls champion), Pentala Harikrishna (2004), Abhijeet Gupta (2008), Harika Dronavalli (2008 world junior girls champion), and Divya Deshmukh (2024 world junior girls champion) were the competitors between Anand and Pranav.
The five-time world champion Anand founded the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA), where Pranav is a fellow and a graduate of Chennai’s Vellamal Institute, like his distinguished forebears Gukesh and Praggnanadhaa.
Based on the renowned Botvinnik School of Chess and the Samford Fellowship, the WACA program has been nurturing some of India’s top players since the pandemic.
Pranav seemed like a natural talent to me. Anand explained his decision to handpick Pranav for the WACA program to The Indian Express on Friday. “You could see it in his games and also a couple of people I consult pointed this out to me so that was useful confirmation,” Anand said.
According to Anand, there was a time when he had to set up additional sessions for Pranav at WACA.
He struggled during one of his runs. Or perhaps he wasn’t moving as quickly as he would have liked. However, he has recently regained his momentum, which is encouraging in my opinion. Anand stated, “I wanted to see if that would get him going again and help him rediscover his form, so I gave him a lot of extra classes in WACA (during his slow down).”
Carlsen’s “buddy”
Playing for Offerspill Sjakklubb, the team of World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen, at the European Club Cup 2023 was one of Pranav’s standout performances. Carlsen experienced a team victory in that tournament. Carlsen’s victory in the 2023 European Club Cup broke what appeared to be a rare jinx on the 64 squares: he simply could not win team events, even with teammates Arjun Erigaisi, Praggnanandhaa, and Gukesh at the SG Alpine Warriors in the inaugural season of the Global Chess League.
However, Carlsen’s Offerspill Sjakklubb was able to stay in the running for the title thanks to Pranav’s resounding victory over Jorden van Foreest, who was competing on behalf of Superchess, in the penultimate round.
Following Pranav’s victory, Carlsen had tweeted, “Pranav is buddy and buddy is Pranav.” By mentioning the nickname “buddy” that the teenager had been given by the Internet, it was more of a nod to his skill than a direct compliment.
Pranav is buddy and buddy is Pranav.
— Magnus Carlsen (@MagnusCarlsen) October 7, 2023
That year, Pranav also made waves in chess circles by defeating Magnus Carlsen in an online Titled Tuesday match, demonstrating his skill.
Anand, who was playing for Superchess at the time, was also impressed by Pranav’s performance at the 2023 European Club Cup.
One thing that has stood out in my interactions with Pranav over the years is his resourcefulness. He is a very tough player to play against because of his persistence and ability to locate hidden resources in challenging situations. Anand stated, “We all realised how hard it was to put him away, especially in the European Club Cup two years ago, and I think his team success definitely owed to the fact that he converted some really horrible positions.”
Congratulations to the World Junior Champion Pranav Venkatesh.He has been in great form lately. Our @WacaChess mentee. He is very meticulous in his work and constantly analyses his own games , comes back with suggestions and takes feedback. You join a very prestigious line of…
— Viswanathan Anand (@vishy64theking) March 7, 2025
The teenager used that European Club Cup competition as a launching pad. Since then, Pranav’s career has taken off. In November 2024, he won the Challengers event at the Chennai Grand Masters, defeating players like Harika Dronavalli, Vaishali Rameshbabu, Raunak Sadhwani, Leon Luke Mendonca, and Karthikeyan Murali. At that event, he actually defeated Karthikeyan, Vaishali, and Harika.
He also won two golds in the Under-18 division at the World Youth Rapid and Blitz Chess Championship in Terme Catez, Slovenia, in December of last year.
Aravindh Chithambaram’s victory at the Prague Masters coincided with Pranav’s ascent to the World Junior Championship crown.
Naturally, a few months ago, we had high hopes for Indian chess. However, it would be fantastic for us if players like Aravindh and Pranav Venkatesh joined the group, Anand stated.