The secrets of B. Adhiban's positive approach towards chess and life
He will always greet you with a smile and warmth, he is always high on energy and in almost any conversation you will see him adding some of the famous quotes of great personalities! The natural question to ask is - how does Adhiban Baskaran remain so positive all the time? What is the secret of his positivity, huge ambitions and a pleasant personality? Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal visited Adhiban's home in Chennai, immediately after Adhiban had won the tournament of Peace in Croatia in November 2018. Apart from doing an interview on the tournament, we also got an insight into Adhiban's workspace, Adhiban's parents and his support system. Also how does Adhiban keep the ambience at his place in a way that it perpetually motivates him to do well? In this article you get to know all the secrets.
It was the final classical game of the Carlsen-Caruana match and I was on my way to GM B. Adhiban's house. I wanted to make sure that Amruta and I arrived a couple of hours before the game began. Adhiban had just won the tournament of Peace in Zagreb, Croatia and it would be nice to discuss his victory before going on to commentate on the World Championship game. I got down from my taxi and saw the Indian Oil Enclave in front of me. It was a society with several buildings. I went up to the watchman and asked him if he knew where Adhiban lived. "The Chess Grandmaster?" he exclaimed! My heart filled with pride. Usually the watchman knows the name of the people living in the society, but Adhiban's exploits had made him synonymous with chess in his area. "Please go straight, last building, turn left and his house is on the first floor", he directed me. I followed his instructions and reached the first floor.
In a few minutes I was going to get a tour of Adhiban's house, but just by looking at the door, one thing is clear - Adhiban likes to speak his mind out. Yes, he is an International Grandmaster in chess and he would like people to know about it. Many people take it as immodesty. But nothing could be farther from truth. Adhiban is straight, direct and truthful. Never immodest or arrogant.
We were given a warm welcome in the house by Adhiban and his family. In the next couple of hours we got to know the complete picture of this colourful personality. We already knew a lot about Adhiban - the chess player, but now we got to know more about Adhiban - the person.
1. Leela - Adhiban's mother
"The positivity that you see in me today is because of my mother!", says Adhiban. "She is the one who made me dream big and always remain upbeat." Adhiban's mother Leela is a split personality! Yes, but in a good way! When we entered the house, we saw the first side of her. She welcomed us, and made her way to the kitchen!
Once when Adhiban was going to arrive from a long European tour, she stayed up all night and cooked Adhiban's favourite dishes. One of them being the red tomato chutney. Adhiban's mother was loving, caring and a wonderful cook. But don't most of the mothers have these qualities? Well, earlier in the article we spoke about Leela's split personality, here's what we mean. Once the dinner was done and Adhiban and I went inside the room for the live commentary, Leela switched on her chess player mode! She immediately challenged Amruta to a game!
"What's your rating?", I asked Leela. "It's 1125", but before she had even finished the sentence she added, "But I am gaining 48 Elo points in my last two events! So that makes it 1173!" I could literally sense the fire in her eyes. She truly loves chess and not just playing it. She wants to study the game, improve at it and also play a lot of tournaments. Leela is 50 years old, but age does not bog her down. I slowly began to realize how that Adhiban's confidence and ambition has not come out of the blue! It's something that has been passed onto him by his mother!
2. Baskaran - Adhiban's father
Baskaran is one of the most soft spoken and mild mannered persons you will find in the chess world. He had a printing business, but shut it down recently. Since then he has been Adhiban's manager, taking care of the finer points of his son's career. A thoroughly dedicated father, Baskaran is always worried about Adhiban's flights, schedule, hotel bookings. But guess what is his way of unwinding?
"I am not a very strong chess player but I enjoy playing chess!" That's the reason why he quietly moved away from the dinner table and satisfied his craving for making a few moves over the chess board with an online blitz game! Baskaran keeps Adhiban's chess career under control. He travels with him to tournaments and you would hardly see him worried, tensed or anxious. Deep within he is, but he puts up a poker face. You never see him flustered or angry. That's also one of the reasons why Adhiban has been able to perform well with his father travelling by his side.
3. The perfect ambience Adhiban's house
It wouldn't be wrong to say that whenever you meet Adhiban, he is high on energy. Be it after a win, after a loss, at an event where he is the chief guest, or just meeting him for some personal work, Adhiban is never down. He is always charged up! How does he manage this? A lot of it has to do with his environment. Adhiban has carefully created the ambience in his house to keep himself charged up all the time. Be it the quote of Vivekananda, or his stylish photo on the chair which made it to the New in Chess Magazine, or the showpieces that he has bought from different places all over the world, all point to one thing - Be Positive! One of Adhiban's favourite quotes of Swami Vivekananda is "All power is within you. You can do anything and everything. Believe in that, do not believe that you are weak. Stand up and express the divinity within you!"
A lot of Adhiban's decisions on the chess board are governed by inspiration. Be it his Scandinavian against Magnus Carlsen, or the King's Gambit against Wesley So, all of this stems from the fact that he is not at all afraid of his opponents. If you don't fear the guy sitting in front of you, why would you fear to experiment? I hope that our visit to Adhiban's house gave you an insight as to how Adhiban's support system and surroundings help him to remain in the best frame of mind. If you still are hungry for more, then have a look at the entire 20-minute tour of his house.
Adhiban's victory at the tournament of Peace in Croatia
Adhiban started the year 2018 with an Elo of 2655. After a pretty bad Tata Steel Masters he was down to 2643. But since then it has all been upwards for the Chennai GM. He scored 8.0/9 at the National Team Championship 2018 and followed it up with a victory at the prestigious Reykjavik Open 2018. This was followed a joint second place performance at the Sharjah Masters. The Asian Nations Cup and Spanish League were not so great, but the Olympiad and Isle of Man International (remember his final round win against Michael Adams!) helped Adhiban reach 2682. The final event for the year for Adhiban was the Tournament of Peace in Croatia. It was a strong event where you had players like Ivanchuk, Saric, Cheparinov, Amin, Bacrot and more. Adhiban scored 7.5/11 and won the tournament in style, half a point ahead of his nearest rivals Bacrot and Ivanchuk. He performed at an Elo of 2765, gaining 13 Elo points and pumping up his rating to 2695.
Final standings:
| Rk. | SNo | Name | FED | RtgI | Club/City | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | TB4 | TB5 | Rp | K | rtg+/- | ||
| 1 | 10 | GM | Adhiban B. | IND | 2682 | 7,5 | 3,5 | 37,50 | 0,0 | 5 | 3 | 2765 | 10 | 12,5 | ||
| 2 | 5 | GM | Bacrot Etienne | FRA | 2677 | 7,0 | 3,5 | 37,75 | 0,0 | 3 | 0 | 2734 | 10 | 8,5 | ||
| 3 | 12 | GM | Ivanchuk Vassily | UKR | 2714 | ŠK Zagreb, Zagreb | 7,0 | 2,5 | 33,75 | 0,0 | 4 | 3 | 2731 | 10 | 2,7 | |
| 4 | 8 | GM | Šarić Ivan | CRO | 2692 | ŠK Liburnija, Rijeka | 6,5 | 3,5 | 35,50 | 0,0 | 3 | 0 | 2696 | 10 | 1,1 | |
| 5 | 11 | GM | Cheparinov Ivan | GEO | 2711 | ŠK FERIT-OSIJEK, Osijek | 6,5 | 2,5 | 30,50 | 0,0 | 5 | 1 | 2694 | 10 | -2,2 | |
| 6 | 2 | GM | Malakhov Vladimir | RUS | 2654 | ŠK Zagreb, Zagreb | 6,0 | 3,0 | 31,00 | 0,0 | 2 | 1 | 2670 | 10 | 2,1 | |
| 7 | 7 | GM | Amin Bassem | EGY | 2709 | 6,0 | 2,5 | 29,50 | 0,0 | 3 | 1 | 2665 | 10 | -6,6 | ||
| 8 | 6 | GM | Zelčić Robert | CRO | 2508 | ŠK Zagreb, Zagreb | 5,0 | 2,5 | 25,25 | 0,0 | 2 | 1 | 2612 | 10 | 15,2 | |
| 9 | 4 | GM | Stević Hrvoje | CRO | 2589 | ŠK Zagreb, Zagreb | 4,5 | 2,5 | 24,00 | 0,0 | 0 | 0 | 2575 | 10 | -2,3 | |
| 10 | 3 | GM | Kožul Zdenko | CRO | 2612 | ŠK Zagreb, Zagreb | 4,0 | 2,0 | 18,75 | 0,0 | 3 | 1 | 2536 | 10 | -10,9 | |
| 11 | 9 | GM | Palac Mladen | CRO | 2548 | ŠK Zagreb, Zagreb | 4,0 | 1,5 | 19,00 | 0,0 | 1 | 0 | 2542 | 10 | -1,0 | |
| 12 | 1 | GM | Jovanović Zoran | CRO | 2537 | ŠK Sljeme-Agroproteinka, Sesvete | 2,0 | 1,0 | 11,50 | 0,0 | 0 | 0 | 2383 | 10 | -19,1 |
"When I got to know about this tournament, my trainer told me, you are not the most ideal person to be invited to the tournament of peace. You are opposite of peace! (laughs) But at the opening ceremony I got to know that this was the fifth edition of the tournament and one of the previous winners was none other than Bobby Fischer! When the name Fischer is involved, it motivates me always. You know Fischer had big connections to Reykjavik in Iceland, and I won the Reykjavik Open 2018. So I was greatly motivated to know that Fischer was one of the previous winners of the tournament of peace!" Indeed, with this victory Adhiban joined a club of legends who have won this event in the past - Sax, Ivkov, Fischer and Timman. Says Adhiban, "Every time I win a tournament, I dedicate it to someone. This time I would like to dedicate it to my friend Vidit Gujrathi. It was he who was invited to this tournament, but he couldn't play at this event and so he recommended my name instead. I am grateful to Vidit for that gesture!"
Bassem Amin vs B. Adhiban
With the year 2019 beginning, it seems highly likely that Adhiban will be the fifth Indian to break into 2700 zone (previous four being Anand, Sasikiran, Harikrishna and Vidit). We wish him the best for the same!
To sign off I would like to recount one of Adhiban's most famous quotes: "After every loss, I ask myself - is this defeat going to stop me. And the answer is always NO! So, I get back on my feet and get back to work!"
