Beat the Najdorf & Taimanov Sicilians!

From a very young age I had this incurable curiosity about intricacies in the opening. One memorable episode, of which I remain proud even today, occurred when I was 13 years old. I had been watching the game Karjakin – Anand at Wijk aan Zee 2006, in which Vishy unleashed a fascinating novelty with 24…Nc7. After watching that game I was unable to sleep and I began to analyze the crazy, razor-sharp English attack for hours and hours.

I found some very interesting ideas and shortly afterwards I showed them to my coach GM R.B.Ramesh (a very famous, world-class trainer) in a training session. There were, in total, 20 pages of analysis based upon the game! He was stunned by the level of detail as it was not normal for a thirteen year old in those days to create such in-depth analysis (of course now it’s a different story as people regularly become Grandmasters at the age of 13!).

From that time on I’ve been consistently cementing my reputation, especially among my fellow Indian Grandmasters, as an opening expert. I have real insights to impart from the many years of work and so it was a no-brainer for me to seize the opportunity to write a book and share my knowledge with the readers.