This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with Indian grandmaster Swayams Mishra. A FIDE trainer since 2018, Swayams is already a decorated chess coach, having worked with the Indian national team for several years and coaching their women’s team to gold at this year’s Olympiad. His private coaching has also been successful: having cultivated over thirty FIDE norms from his students, he was recently responsible for giving Britain its youngest ever grandmaster, when prodigy Shreyas Mishra achieved the title at 15 years and seven months. Other notable players who have achieved success under Swayam’s tutelage include five-time Indian Women’s Champion Padmini Rout and promising young talent Ethan Vaz, among many others.

Jacob Aagaard is hosting this week’s episode, and he does so with a reason; while Swayams eventually achieved great success after transitioning into coaching, he was once a promising young player with a coach of his own: Jacob Aagaard. This shorthand between the two men makes for an engaging and familiar listening experience, in addition to Swayams’s interesting stories.

Enjoy this week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast!

The New In Chess podcast is published every Friday and can be listened to on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and the New In Chess website.

Timestamps
00:00 – Intro 
01:54 – Welcome Swayams!
03:55 – Where Swayams and Jacob first met
05:03 – Does Sam Shankland troll Swayams’s online sessions?
05:48 – Jacob tells a (non-child-friendly) Stany story
07:31 – What was Swayams’s role in the Indian’s women’s team at this year’s Olympiad?
09:02 – Swayams explains the difference between coaching men versus women
10:18 – AD BREAK
11:00 – How do Swayams’s days look when his pupils are playing big tournaments?
13:03 – To what does Swayams attribute the current Indian chess boom?
16:17 – Swayams stresses how universally popular chess is and predicts its possible inclusion in future Olympic games
19:30 – The role of petroleum companies in sponsoring Indian chess
21:53 – Swayams’s success coaching Shreyas Royal, who became the youngest British grandmaster in history; multiple-time Indian Women’s Champion Padmini Rout; and Ethan Vaz, a young talent who Swayams regards as the future of Indian chess
24:39 – AD BREAK
25:37 – Swayams gives three pieces of advice for an ambitious chess player trying to improve
28:56 – Outro