Grand Master Karthikeyan Murali, India

GM Karthikeyan Murali

"It was in the year 2006/07 when my dad went through an operation. It was a tricky situation, where I felt sad for him as he couldn't go for the work but was happy that we could spend some time together. As doctor insisted him to stay home for few days, we indulged ourselves into some board games. Ludo, snake and ladder and of course, chess.
My dad taught me all the rules of the game and immediately I found it interesting. In other games luck played a major role but in chess it was purely cognizance and calculation. After knowing the basic know-how of the game, I asked him whether the game was famous?
He then told me the story of Vishwananath Anand.
His story and games fascinated me and I started developing a liking towards the game.

It soon became a part of my day to day life.
Chess built my character, it helped me in concentrating better at any task I do. It helped my decision making as well. Being totally into chess, studies was a task for me .
But I secured 95 percent in 10th as well as 12th. Even I wonder how sometimes.
For me now, chess is life.

In 2016, I got to be a part of the Olympiad team, it was really a nice experience.
I learnt many things from top players like Adhiban, Harikrishna, Vidit, Sethuraman.
That was turning point in my chess career.

There's another special incident which I can never forget. It was in the year 2019, I was playing in Gibraltar. I won a long game against Matlakov and went back to the room. The pairing for the last round was more or less obvious. I was going to face MVL. 
I was staying with my friends Vaibhav Suri and Lalith Babu. The whole night we discussed about my crucial last round. We 3 worked on openings, psychology and many more aspects of the game and all of it paid off. I won my game against MVL. It has been a special memory because they both didn't talk about their preparation or any other factor but were solely focusing on helping me.