A Woman Grandmaster (WGM) ranked No. 37 in India, the next destination for 20-year-old Vantika Agrawal, is to become a Grand Master. But she has another job at hand.

With chess as her priority, she wants to finish her B. Com (Hons) degree which she is pursuing from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi.

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She’s preparing herself for the Grandmaster title this year. “I would’ve become a Grandmaster at 14. It’s just that studies got in the way. I wasn’t able to participate in many tournaments because of them,” she told a leading news daily. Now, the chess champ is on the last leg of completing her graduation, and raring to go.

She won the National Child Award in 2016, a bronze at World Youth Chess Championship U-14, Fide Women’s Grand Swiss Tournament 2021, and WGM title also in 2021.

She enjoys playing the Classical format, but Blitz is her favourite as you need to think and act fast, which helps in other formats as well.

With Chartered Accountant parents, she realizes the value of education so much so that she utilizes her travel time during flights when her mother reads out lessons to her, she grasps the meaning and this is how she prepares for her exams.

The Delhi girl admits that playing at the national and international level demands tremendous sacrifices from the family. But the biggest hiccup was that her parents were not able to make her participate in some tournaments as both were working. Her mother gave up her flourishing practice so that she could travel with Vantika for all the tournaments. Sponsorships started coming her way and now she is in a better space which earlier was a huge financial burden on her parents.

Born in 2002, she is India’s third-ranked women’s player with an ELO rating of 2428.

She tried playing all sports as a kid – cricket, tennis, karate, skating, badminton, piano. But she got hooked on to the most unusual game, chess. She just played it one day with her brother to analyse her skills. She learnt the basic moves from him and won a tournament at school.

Now, she wanted to know everything about the game —  the pawn structure, opening, middle and end game. She started applying her brain on various moves, she knew she wanted more out of the game. She played in the local circuit, nationals and other tournaments in the country before she aspired to be a Grand Master.