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 Want to meet the boy next door who's a Grandmaster and his zen master trainer and father !! Make a small trip across the
Madras city to its suburb Nanganallur.
For the middle class Krishnan's
it was a Polgar like experiment. The Krishnan couple, built an ideal platform, of made-to-order proportions,
that saw the budding of a fighter Grandmaster. Krishnan, himself a
strong club player of yesteryears, brought live his ideas and has thus
far successfully trained a Grandmaster and an International Master (Sundararajan
Kidambi). Sasikiran
is the second Grandmaster from Madras after World Champion Viswanathan
Anand, who incidentally hails from this South Indian metro. A
multitude of titles in his decade of advent into the mind game of
chess, include, the National Championship, Asian Junior Championship,
Commonwealth Championship and a host of other title victories. For late
starter, at 12 years of age, Sasikiran has come far and is bound to
reach greater heights with his determination and indomitable fighting
spirit. The
young Grandmaster, just out of his teens, spared a Sunday for the Chathurangam
crew and made a delightful company along with his parents, Mr Krishnan
and Mrs Jayashree Krishnan.
 You had mixed year winning Hastings and Colombo but was a little down towards the end at
Asian Championship in Calcutta, with the tied first in the National "A" coming prior to that. How do sum it up ?
I am not fully satisfied with this year. It could have been better. Felt that I couldn't convert good positions in many vital games. Also I got into time pressure a little too frequently, that did me in.
How does it feel to play in the World Championship for the second year running ?
I was happy to qualify for the second time and hope to
do well at Moscow. Playing in the Olympic Young Masters event in Lausanne which was a knock out and the Zonals in Colombo under the new time controls have helped me to get used it.
About your preparation to Moscow ?
I am already working on it, and plan to add IM Sundararajan Kidambi to my preparation. I reached second round last time and lost to GM Loek van Wely. This time around, I want to avoid previous mistakes and improve upon my show at New Delhi.
 About the title victory that you cherished the most ?
It is yet to come. Maybe, Pentamedia GM tournament at Chennai last
year. (After a little thought adds) But, I'd put the Commonwealth title at Sangli on the top. Till date it is the strongest tournament I've won. On your practice of playing regular training games ?
It's one thing that I love to do, and have been doing it regularly.
It was basically the idea of my
father and trainer, Mr Krishnan, which caught upon me. I used to train with Chennai players
A L Kasi, A Sankar, S Kidambi and M J Ismail. Quite recently I've been doing it with GM Dibyendu Barua and found it extremely useful. My vision for tactics improved after training with
Barua.  About
the big list of Indian qualifiers for the World Championships ?
I
am quite happy and see it as a very good sign. Some
light about your preparation ? I
do workouts in gym, including playing an array of physical games,
viz., tennis, badminton, volleyball etc., and follow it up
working on the games I played and some usual preparation. A
thought for the slide in your Elo in this current list ? It
has happened before, and I take it as it comes. How
do you relax ? I
love listening to music, Indian and Western. Also I watch Tamil movies
occasionally. What
is your immediate schedule ? Its
Moscow, Hastings and maybe, Wijk Aan Zee "B".
Wishing you a successful show in the
Moscow and Hastings 2002 !
Thank you very much !
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