Unfolding the rise of India’s fourth Senior International Master, Tanmay Srinath

Maybe this was always the path

I didn’t start young. I learned chess in 2013, at the age of 13—relatively late by today’s standards. I got my first rating in 2015, and for a while, I dreamed the usual dream: tournaments, titles, the grind of over-the-board play. But in India, real life tends to show up early. First came the Class 10 boards, then the all-important Class 12. Like many others, I had to put chess on pause for academics. At the time, it felt like a roadblock.

In hindsight, it wasn’t. It was a redirection.

The answer came in 2017, when I started contributing to ChessBase India as a freelancer. My earliest pieces were simple game reviews—annotating the fights that inspired me, trying to understand why strong players made the decisions they did. Eventually, that grew into full-fledged journalism. By 2019, I was covering major tournaments, interviewing grandmasters, and writing longform pieces that tried to distill not just what happened, but why it mattered.

Writing taught me to see the game differently. It slowed me down. It gave me space to think. And eventually, it led me to something else entirely.

Goa, 2019: The Spark

At the Goa GM International that year, I was playing the B and C categories. I’d already written a few pieces for ChessBase India, so I found myself hanging around the stall a lot—talking to the team, discussing books and openings with anyone who dropped by. That’s where I ran into GM Karthik Venkataraman.

We got chatting about his love for systems like 1.b3. Then, almost casually, I showed him an idea I’d been toying with in the 5.Re1 Berlin— an improvement on Shirov’s 2016 Chessbase DVD on the same subject.

He took a look. Thought for a bit. Then said, “This could be something. If it works concretely, it might actually be very interesting.”

That was the first real moment of validation. I wasn’t a titled player. I wasn’t even sure where I stood in the chess world. But here was a top Indian GM giving genuine credit to an idea I’d found. It meant something. (Later, Vaishali used this to good effect in the 2022 Chess Olympiad to win a very important game for the Indian team.)

A few days later, during the same event, Sagar Shah asked me, “Would you like to write an opening survey for ChessBase?”

I said yes. I already had something in mind: an antidote to Four Pawns Benoni with 9…b5. A line I felt had been chronically underestimated.

I poured everything into it. When Oliver Reeh from Chessbase got back to us, he called it one of the best surveys he’d read. After that, I submitted the Berlin piece too—and together, those two surveys changed something fundamental in me. For the first time, I wasn’t just observing the chess world. I was contributing to it.

When Patterns Become Direction

In 2020, I wrote one of the pieces I still hold closest to my heart: Fat Fritz and the Candidates. It was a two-part (Click to see Part 1, Part 2) series where I used the newly released engine Fat Fritz to re-explore the opening preparation of the Candidates Tournament. One idea stood out—a novelty involving an early ...a5 in the Slav complex, specifically improving on a line from a Giri–Caruana game.

At the time, it was barely noticed. Today, this concept has found its way into mainstream theory.

The feedback I got from that article was overwhelming. A number of GMs reached out with appreciation. It wasn’t just nice to hear—it showed me a pattern. Maybe this was where I truly belonged: in the deep end of opening research, novelty hunting, and long-form analysis. Not just journalism. Not just commentary. Creation.

And just as I was beginning to lean into that idea, March came.

When the World Stopped, Something Began

The pandemic brought everything to a halt. No tournaments. No OTB. No clarity.

But I had already taken one step, almost unknowingly. In January 2020, I had played my first correspondence tournament—and I’d won. Back then, it felt like an experiment. But with the world now on pause, it suddenly felt like a path.

All the work I had done—every survey, every deep dive, every hour spent questioning engine evaluations or chasing down obscure novelties—prepared me for this.

In correspondence chess, emotion doesn’t matter. What matters is the idea. The depth. The resilience. Everyone has the same tools. What separates you is whether you can see something others—and their engines—can’t. I realized that the things I was most drawn to in chess—the science, the structure, the quiet clarity—lived fully in this format. And from there, it began.

2020: Baby Steps

The first half of 2020 was about dipping my feet into correspondence chess. I started with two open tournaments—both of which I won. But more than the results, it was the games that stayed with me. I wasn’t particularly disciplined with openings. I used to play whatever I liked. I remember one game where I played the Wing Gambit, and my opponent followed a line Kotronias had suggested in his book.

I responded with a chaotic pawn sac. Today’s engines show it’s probably lost with perfect play—but back then, it held up, and I scraped a draw. I won the rest and took the event.

The second tournament taught me something deeper. I had a clearly better position against one opponent, but I followed the engine too trustingly. I chose a line that looked fine in evals, but it led to mass liquidation—and what should’ve been a win became an easy draw. I still won the event overall, but that game was the start of a realization:

Copy-pasting engine moves doesn't win you games!

You still need to think. Understand. Strategize. That was the first real lesson.

The India–Germany Match: Accumulating Advantages

Next came the India–Germany friendly match. I won both games—and they were eye-opening because they weren’t won in the opening. They were won in the middlegame. In one game with Black, I outplayed my opponent in a structure that resembled the Exchange French—something almost impossible in classical chess.

In the other, I played a Reti setup, got no real advantage, but slowly built pressure on an isolated queen’s pawn until the position collapsed.

That was the first time I came close to a big truth: If you choose the right plan—even against engine-assisted opponents—you can outplay them.

It’s not just about finding new moves. It’s about asking better questions on the board.

The National Championship: So near, yet so far

The Indian National Championship started later that year. I used an aggressive idea from Game Changer—a Queen’s Indian line with an early pawn sacrifice that I believed could give me chances. But my opponent had analyzed it to the bones. The game ended in a forced draw.

What hurt wasn’t the draw itself—it was that he went on to lose to almost everyone else. And that half point? It cost me the tournament. Another player tied for first, but won on Sonneborn–Berger. By 0.5. I had beaten strong players, taken real chances, but that one game… it stayed with me.

That was the moment I realized: Good preparation isn’t enough. You need to know when to keep tension alive. Sometimes it’s not about finding truth—it’s about keeping play going long enough to make something happen.

Africa–Asia Team Championship: The Illusion of Strength

Another milestone that year was the Africa–Asia Team Championship, where I played board four. Most of the Indian players cruised through—but I didn’t. I finished second, but I wasn’t satisfied. There was one game, against Pérez, where I had a significantly stronger engine. But we were both copy-pasting Stockfish first lines—and because of that, our differences didn’t matter. The game fizzled out into a draw from a sharp F3 Grunfeld.

It was another wake-up call:

Just having a better tool doesn’t mean you’ll get a better outcome—especially if you use it the same way.

Lockdown Preliminaries: The First True Spark

2020 wasn’t all growing pains. Somewhere in that storm, I played the Lockdown Preliminaries, and that’s where things that later worked for me entered my CC life.

One early game, while I was White, taught me something subtle but lasting. My opponent chose a line that traded queens very early — liquidation right out of the opening. I followed the path, didn’t object, and the game slipped into a sterile draw. Only after the game did I realize that I had a choice. There were multiple paths — objectively equal — but one of them kept more pieces, more play, more possibilities. That was a key inflection point in my growth.

When given two equal options, choose the one that keeps the game alive. That lesson stayed with me.

But this event wasn’t defined by that draw — it was defined by the wins.

This was the first time I cracked the top 10 in a truly strong event, finishing fourth overall. I still had a provisional rating, and yet I was competing toe-to-toe with experienced correspondence players. It wasn’t just encouraging — it was affirming.

The Catalan Enters

This tournament also marked the debut of a system that would go on to define much of my correspondence journey: the Catalan. At the time, I was still experimenting freely with openings. I didn’t yet have a concrete repertoire. But the Catalan struck a chord, even then. It gave me flexibility, long-term pressure, and positions I could breathe in.

One game in particular — against Josef Filipek — cemented that feeling. I introduced an idea on move 16 that broke the spine of an old mainline. The game was clean. Clinical. From the opening itself, I started exerting pressure, and the advantage only grew. Later, that game would be featured in the book AI Revolution, as an example of how even engine-sanitized main lines could be subverted with the right plan. The idea I played effectively shelved that line from serious play.

That game wasn’t just a win. It was a statement. It proved the Catalan could be a weapon — not just a setup.

And while the game technically ended in early 2021, I see it as part of the 2020 arc. That’s where the idea was born. That’s where the prep was done. That’s when the Catalan entered my bloodstream — and never really left.

ICCF World Cup 43 Prelims: Breaking down a CC GM’s Fortress

Toward the end of the year, I played the World Cup preliminaries—and finally got my first big scalp. I beat GM Artis Gaujens’ artistically defended position—something that looked fortress-like. But I managed to squeeze it until it cracked. That game stands out as my first real “proof of concept” win. It showed me that it was possible—not just to survive, but to dominate—even against players far more experienced than me.

But this moment of success was followed by a healthy slap in the face. I didn’t qualify to the finals. Still over-reliant on the engine. Still playing chess that looked fine on evals but lacked the subtlety and friction that wins games in correspondence. That contrast—between what worked and what didn’t—left a deep impression.

What 2020 Taught Me

By the end of 2020, I had started eight events. I did well in many of them. I even had my first big win against a GM. But none of that mattered as much as what I unlearned.

1. Openings aren’t experiments. You can’t just play what feels fun or creative—you need lines that hold up to engine scrutiny and preserve tension on the board.

2. Engines are not infallible. Following the first line blindly often leads to nothing. Understanding why a move works is far more important than whether it’s +0.30 or +0.25.

3. Having better tools means nothing if you think the same way. The advantage comes not from the engine itself—but how you use it. You need to lead it into questions only you know how to ask.

Most of all, I learned that correspondence chess wasn’t just about precision—it was about patience. It was the perfect antidote to my over-the-board personality: volatile, emotional, prone to blitzing out moves. Correspondence gave me time. Time to think. Time to dig. Time to reinvent.

2020 was the foundation. Everything that came later—titles, norms, deeper insights—was built on this year of chaos, confusion, and clarity.

2021: When Results Hurt, and Growth Began

If 2020 was the year of learning what doesn’t work, then 2021 was the year I started to understand why. But that didn’t make it any easier — because in many ways, 2021 contained some of my most painful failures, even as it slowly taught me how to become a real correspondence player.

Jubilee World Cup: My Only Loss

The year began with the 70th ICCF Jubilee World Cup (Section 4) — and I’ll say this without flinching: this was probably my biggest failure to date.

I finished with an even score, but that doesn’t tell the full story. This was the tournament where I suffered my first and only loss in correspondence play — and it wasn’t because of preparation or luck. It was because I wasn’t in control of myself. I was emotionally volatile, physically unhealthy, and lacked the resilience needed to sustain high-level CC play. That showed in one game in particular — where, despite completely outplaying my opponent in a Semi Slav, I rushed a critical decision and turned a completely winning position into a dead loss with one premature king march. It was a stupid mistake because I forgot to insert an intermediate capture. An input error that led to a loss.

That game cost me a great result A +2 score would’ve put me near the top 20. Instead, it felt like I’d thrown away months of work because I couldn’t slow down.

And this wasn’t even my only mistake in the event. I spent the whole tournament playing the London System, inspired by some recent wins I’d seen, but I hadn’t done the depth work. I was again relying too much on engines — not analysis. Ironically, the only silver lining was that the games turned into decent material later for a few ChessBase Magazine articles I wrote. But I wasn’t proud of how I played.

Friendly Matches: A Lab, Not a War

After that, I played friendly matches against Italy and Mexico. Not much changed here — the engine-first approach was still dominant. All four games ended in draws, but they were important in one way: this was the first time I started experimenting with the Classical Sicilian, King’s Indian, and even an offbeat Bg5 Italian line — all of which would go on to become part of my OTB repertoire later.

So these games weren’t about winning — they were a lab, not a war.

Africa-Asia Semi-Final: Learning to Keep the Tension

Then came the 21st Africa-Asia Zonal Semi-Final (Group C) — and this was a true turning point. Three Indians were in the section, and I was among them, fighting for a top finish. I ended up second, narrowly missing out on my first IM norm by half a point. The winner had three wins, I had two — that was the difference.

But there was one game here that genuinely changed my understanding of CC. For the first time, I wasn’t trying to force things. I just kept tension. I didn’t cave to equality or default to simplification. I played on, slowly accumulating chances in a seemingly level position, and my opponent had to suffer for 70 moves before eventually reached a 7-piece tablebase draw.

That game gave me confidence that I could outplay engine users by crafting chances and provoking mistakes — even from dry-looking positions.

Champions League C Division: Team First, Results Followed

Then came my favorite memory of 2021: the ICCF Champions League. We formed a team from India, and because I was the lowest-rated (despite already being 2325), I ended up on Board 4. But I didn’t mind. That was where I could score points for the team — and that’s exactly what I did.

I scored five wins and comfortably made my CCE norm, though I wasn’t really chasing titles back then. I was more focused on helping the team qualify — and we did, finishing second and earning promotion to Division B.

Two games from this event stand out. In one, my opponent went for a Kan Sicilian that transposed into a Hedgehog. I launched a deep attacking idea with f3–g4, castled queenside, accepted a pawn sacrifice on b5, and eventually used the principle of two weaknesses to break through. It was a well-prepared line, and it worked like clockwork.

The other game was almost the opposite. I misplayed the opening, ended up worse, but fought back using conditional moves — a series of 20+ “if you do this, I do that” pre-submitted replies — to navigate into what I thought was a draw. But my opponent, just as my conditionals ran out, blundered a rook, and the game was over. It was my first bit of real luck in CC — and I remember thinking it surely wouldn’t be my last.

2021 taught me three big things:

1. You can’t play CC on emotion. That’s the fastest way to burn months of hard work.

2. You have to stop copying engines and start understanding them. Without strategic context, Stockfish is just a blunt instrument.

3. Tension is a weapon. Holding the balance for long enough can create opportunities — even in “equal” positions.

I didn’t win a title this year that made headlines. But I look at 2021 as the year where correspondence chess stopped being a format — and started becoming a discipline.

2022–2023: Drawing Lines, Drawing Lessons

If there’s a phase in my correspondence journey that I would call foundational, it would be these two years — not because of what I won, but because of what I understood.

In 2022, I played just one tournament — VIAEAC Masters 13. I didn’t win a single game. Every game ended in a draw. But it wasn’t a passive or forgettable event. This was the first time I consciously followed a process throughout the tournament. I experimented with the Grünfeld Defense as Black and a specific Nimzo–Larsen move order as White — 1.Nf3 d5 2.b3. These experiments didn’t lead to wins, but they produced positions that had promise and held tension, which had become my focus by this point.

This was also the year I formally stepped away from 1.e4. Until then, it had been a staple of my repertoire, but I was starting to feel that it didn’t give me the kind of rich, complex positions I was trying to seek in correspondence chess. I wanted middlegames with imbalances, slow burns, and multiple plans — positions where both sides had decisions to make. That became my guiding principle: if I had a choice between two equivalent lines, I’d pick the one with more pieces left on the board.

I didn’t play more events in 2022 partly because I had just joined Walmart, and I had limited time. But also because I had a massive backlog of ongoing games from earlier years, and I realized — after speaking to a few experienced friends and mentors — that I needed to reduce clutter. So I decided I’d focus on one event at a time and stick to a narrower repertoire. That choice ended up defining my play for both 2022 and 2023.

In 2023, I carried forward the same approach: low volume, high focus, clear intent. I played a few events — notably the 5th Africa–Asia Board 1 — and once again, all my games ended in draws. The theme stayed consistent. I was trying out closed systems, steering away from 1.e4 entirely except for one Vienna Game experiment inspired by Jon Edwards’ World Championship run. I kept tension, stayed disciplined, and even in games where the opening didn't work out, I fought hard to neutralize and equalize.

Some games ended in short draws because the experiment simply failed. Some dragged on for months. And a few, I admit, ended in draws I offered out of sheer frustration — I didn’t always trust that a slightly better position was enough to push. But in hindsight, even those misjudgments were valuable lessons. I learned not only what might work, but more importantly, what doesn’t. I stopped over-preparing quirky sidelines. I stopped copying engine moves at face value. And I stopped pretending that forcing variations would yield wins just because they had once worked for someone else.

These were also the years I earned my Correspondence Chess Expert (CCE) title (in 2022) and then my Correspondence Chess Master (CCM) title (in 2023). What made this unique was that I didn’t win too many games. Both my CCM norms were earned through draws. But I was playing opponents who were strong enough that even drawing them earned me the rating gains and norms I needed. In a way, that perfectly reflected where I was: I wasn’t ahead of the field, but I had closed the gap. I wasn’t standing out yet, but I had found the direction to move toward.

These two years didn’t bring results that would turn heads. But they brought a kind of quiet discipline to my approach. I was no longer interested in proving things through flashy results — I just wanted to get better at understanding what works. And sometimes, drawing all your games teaches you more about how to win than a lucky point ever could.

2024–2025: Precision, Pressure, and the Payoff

By the start of 2024, I knew what didn’t work. The last two years had been a controlled experiment in restraint — drawing almost every game, pushing positions just enough, watching what collapsed and what endured. I’d given up 1.e4 except in rare cases, learned how not to trust the engine blindly, and most importantly, how to read the patterns in my opponents more than in the opening book.

Now, it was time to apply all of it.

Indian National Championship 1521: 2nd time’s the charm

I started the year with clarity. After much thought, I entered the Indian National Correspondence Championship — only for the second time. The ICCF had just changed its rating formula, which now rewarded wins more generously: up to 20–30 rating points per game. That was a huge shift. I’d been hovering around the 2340–2350 band for ages, but with this new system and my improved approach, I saw a path to break free. By the time I’m writing this, I’ve reached 2454. The rule change helped — but so did playing well.

My approach in 2024 was a blend of over-the-board instinct and correspondence control. Soundness was no longer the only metric. The real question was whether opponents had those forced-draw systems baked into their repertoire. If they did, I avoided them. If not, I went hunting.

I categorized opponents. Was someone consistently entering complexity but getting overwhelmed? Did someone suffer in unbalanced structures? Did someone have blind spots in their opening prep or fall into input errors under pressure? That became the targeting system — not just “play the best move,” but “play the best move for this opponent.”

In the National Championship, I identified three to five clear targets. I had scored +5 the last time I played this tournament and still didn’t win because of a tiebreak. This time, I aimed for +5 again, knowing how much harder it would be in the era of Stockfish 16 and engine perfection.

As of now, I’m sitting at +3, tied for first, with one game left — and I’m winning that game. In the near future, I will likely clinch the National Championship outright, finishing a full point ahead. This will be my first National title in correspondence chess.

The Lucky Break

One game I’ll write off as lucky. My opponent who was rated much less than me surprised me by playing near-perfectly for most of the game. I had to take risks just to keep the tension. Eventually, in a slightly better position for him, he simply stopped playing — most likely due to professional obligations. It wasn’t the first time this happened to me, but it was the first time it played a significant role in shaping a tournament result. Still, since he lost to nearly everyone like this, this wasn’t a differentiator.

Two Targeted Kills

Where I did separate from the field was against the players who finished 13th and 14th. I had White in both games. I knew their repertoires — solid, engine-dependent, vulnerable only to long, tension-filled struggles. I avoided 1.e4 completely. In one game, I went for a Slav setup with 4.e3 and 5.Nbd2, and it turned into one of my cleanest wins ever. He made a few inaccuracies, and I seized the initiative completely — the game ended in 39 moves with a clean piece up.

The other game, against the player who ended 13th, was a Queen’s Gambit Declined (QGD) in the Carlsbad structure. It became a titanic battle — arguably one of the best games of my CC career. He played a well-known but slightly outdated Stockfish line with …Nf6 and …Bd6. I introduced a novel idea of Qb3-d1 which provoked a few queenside weaknesses. On move 17, I found an original improvement that prevented Black’s only real pawn breakthrough, which wasn’t top engine but felt right. I chose to keep the tension, overruled the engine, and was rewarded immediately. He cracked within a few moves.

What followed was a kingside blitzkrieg. I sacrificed the exchange — beautifully, if I may say so — and kept all the momentum. His extra rook never got to play. It felt like I was attacking a piece up, not down. That game was decisive, and very personal: it proved that principled, human-led correspondence chess still wins games.

Friends of Caissa International Open – Section 14: The First SIM Norm

This was the event where I achieved my first Senior International Master (SIM) norm, and more than the result, it marked a return to form in both preparation and imagination.

The first win came in the French Winawer, a line I had switched back to after shelving the Classical Sicilian. The Sicilian had become too “solved” in correspondence — I had to reuse all my ideas in most of my games and it was quite annoying to sign draws like that. So I returned to the Winawer, hoping for more original play.

My opponent went for a sideline that led to a known equal endgame, but I sensed practical chances. He was playing extremely slowly, and that gave me hope. I pressed in the endgame, kept tension on the board, and eventually he lost on time. It was a win carved more through patience than preparation.

The second key game — and one of the best correspondence games I’ve ever played — was in the Catalan with 4…Bb4+. I introduced a sharp idea, improving on a line from a previous CC game. It wasn’t a huge novelty, but the concept was deep: sacrifice two pawns (on c4 and e6) for long-term pressure and dark-square control. The king on g8 was exposed early thanks to a haunting h6 pawn, and from there, the initiative never stopped.

While the engine kept showing equality, the feel of the position told a different story. I created enough pressure to provoke a mistake — a wrong capture that turned the game on its head. Within five moves, the position collapsed. It was a clean, crushing attack: for the first time in a long while, I was playing like I had always imagined CC could be — creative, principled, and human-led.

Champions League 2024 – Group B2

My third major event this cycle was the ICCF Champions League 2024, Group B2, Board 4. I tied for first on my board, finishing undefeated — and not just in result, but also in control. Most games were tense, balanced, but without major breakthroughs. I scored a single win here — not the most elegant game, admittedly — the result of an input error by my opponent. But that’s the nature of CC now: even small oversights can cost entire points.

The broader takeaway? I did everything right. I played soundly, pushed when there was room to push, and didn't overreach when there wasn’t. The higher boards on our team faced stronger opposition, and in this modern era, one lucky win might be the most any board can realistically expect. Still, I stayed sharp throughout — and that consistency mattered more to me than the result.

35 Aniversario FECAP A9 – 2nd SIM norm and Title

This was the event that gave me the Senior International Master (SIM) title — the culmination of a long, often quiet grind. 35 Aniversario FECAP A9 was a Category 6 tournament with strong opposition across the board. I only needed one win to secure the SIM norm, and I got it — in style.

Once again, the Catalan came to my rescue. I returned to the same main line I’d used to beat Filipek earlier, but this time with a subtle twist — a departure from theory just early enough to ask new questions. My opponent, an experienced international master, played solidly but started slipping — tiny inaccuracies that added up. I kept the initiative going, and on move 25, sacrificed the exchange. It wasn’t speculative — it was calculated, alpha-zero-style pressure.

The game turned into a showcase of what I’d learned over the last five years: trust your prep, then trust your feel. Around move 31, he made a decisive mistake, and I capitalized immediately — building pressure on the dark squares, letting him queen again but at the cost of total positional collapse. I then sacrificed a second piece to force through my f-pawn — a brutal finish.

But here’s the twist: the game that sealed the SIM title wasn’t a win. It was a draw, in the Winawer French, a line I revived in 2024 after growing disillusioned with the Classical Sicilian. This time, my opponent chose a rare 7.Nf3 sideline. I played ambitiously, trying to keep the game alive and the clock ticking — especially since this was a triple-block event where time pressure can be lethal. He defended well and found a forced draw, but the result didn’t matter so much since I made my 2nd and final SIM norm.

What Next?

Oddly enough, the significance of the SIM title didn’t fully land until others started talking about it. In the Indian correspondence chess community, it was a small but proud moment — I became only the fourth Indian ever to earn the Senior International Master title, and just the second active Indian alongside Krishnan Sasikiran, someone I’ve admired for years. That should be something special.

But if I’m honest, it wasn’t about the title. Not really. What meant more to me was that I was playing well, learning things, and showing up to every position with clarity and intent. The turning point, in many ways, came after December 2023, when I was initiated into Samyama by Sadhguru. Since then, I’ve been meditating three hours a day. And with that, my mindset shifted. I stopped obsessing over outcomes. I stopped measuring progress by wins and titles.

I’ve never played correspondence chess for the results. I play it because I enjoy it. Because it’s a place where I get to experiment, to stretch, to challenge myself with no real safety net — but also no real pressure. It’s the one format where I get to ask: “What if I tried this?” and actually follow through. That spirit of inquiry has stayed with me far longer than any rating spike or title ever could.

Right now, I’m playing the World Correspondence Chess Championship Candidates Semifinals, and two World Cup Preliminaries. If I win a group, I may get to play in the World Cup Finals — maybe even make it to the Candidates or World Championship one day. But I’m not thinking about any of that. Those are distant things. Unnecessary to worry about.

My current focus — in chess and in life — is just one thing: Can I give my 120% to this moment?

That’s it. That’s the only goal.

When I started this journey, I didn’t have this level of emotional or mental clarity. I made mistakes. I learned the hard way. But along the way, the process of playing correspondence taught me things I now use every day — especially in my role as an innovator at Walmart. Whether it’s debugging a neural network output, shaping a product vision, or understanding how large language models work, the rigor and intuition I built through chess helped immensely. Starting early with engines gave me a deep familiarity with man–machine interactions — so when LLMs exploded into the scene, I was already prepared.

So if someone asks me: what’s next? what are your goals? GM title? World Championship? Honestly, I don’t have any.

The obvious next step is to keep playing stronger events. Maybe aim for the Grandmaster title. Maybe keep pushing that ceiling. But I’m not chasing that. All I care about now is whether I can keep creating chances, keep showing up fully, and keep playing chess the way I want to — with precision, courage, and heart.

The rest can take care of itself.

About the author

Tanmay Srinath is one of only four Indians — and just the second active player — to hold the Senior International Master (SIM) title in correspondence chess. Known for his analytical depth and principled creativity, Tanmay brings the same thoughtful rigor to the board as he does to his writing. Over the years, he has contributed several acclaimed articles to ChessBase India, offering opening insights, deep game analysis, and reflections that resonate with chess enthusiasts across levels.

Outside the chessboard, Tanmay drives AI/ML innovation at Walmart Global Tech. He has led high-impact initiatives across generative AI, and supply chain transformation — including prize-winning work at Walmart's Global Techathons in 2023 and 2024. A Toastmasters leader and mentor, he is also a content creator and a passionate advocate for clear thinking and structured storytelling.

Whether in tech, writing, or chess, Tanmay is drawn to complex problems, elegant systems, and the pursuit of excellence through discipline, creativity, and continuous learning.

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