The Grand Master of 18, Pranav Venkatesh, is the last Indian to win the world junior chess championship. Like the Senior World Champions of Gukesh, he also formed under Viswanathan Anand at the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy and helped Magnus Carlsen to win the European Club Cup once.
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The Indians continue to govern the world of chess while the Grand Master Pranav Venkatesh of Bengaluru won the 2025 Junior World Championship in Petrovac, Montenegro, Friday March 7). The 18 -year -old Pranav won the 2025 World Junior Chess Championship with a September 11 score after seven victories and four draws in a 157 -playing field.
During the last round, Pranav Invainu obtained a draw against the Matic Lavrenc in Slovenia to win the title of the 2025 junior world championship.
By winning the world junior crown, Pranav followed the traces of legends such as Viswanathan Anand and Koneru Humpy.
Viswanathan Anand in 1987 became the first Indian to win the world junior chess championship, followed by Pentala Harikrishna (2004) and Abhijeet Gupta (2008). Koneru Humpy (2001), Harika Dronavalli (2008) and Divya Deshmukh (2024) also won the world titles for junior girls.
D Gukesh is the current world chess champion and the youngest of all time at 18, while Anand won the trophy five times in her career.
Who is Pranav Venkatesh?
Like Gukesh, Pranav is also formed by Anand for Westbridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA). However, earlier, he trained at the BS Chess Academy in 2012-13. He then trained at T Nagar Chess Academy.
Congratulations to the world champion Junior Pranav Venkatesh. He has been in great shape lately. OUR @Wacachess Mentoré. He is very meticulous in his work and constantly analyzes his own games, returns with suggestions and takes comments. You join a very prestigious line of …
– Viswanathan Anand (@ vishy64theking) March 7, 2025
Pranav worked under several coaches in his career, notably Al Kasi, Srinivasa Rangan, Wim N Raghavi, Vijay Anand, GM Vishnu Prasanna and FM FT K Visweswaran.
Born in Bengaluru, Pranav is the 75th Grand Master of India and received the title in August 2022. He reached the first two standards of the Grand Master at the Serbia Open in 2021 and the GM tournament in Vezerkepzo in 2022. He currently has an ELO note of 2615 and a global ranking of 140.
Live, it is 2628.3 and ranked 111.
When Carlsen called Pranav his boyfriend
In 2023, Magnus Carlsen, a world n ° 1, had published a message on the X social media platform, praising Pranav and calling it as a “friend”.
“Pranav is Buddy and Buddy is Pranav,” wrote Carlsen after Pranav, who was part of his team of Sjakkklubbbbi, helped them win the European Cup of the 2023 club. It was the first victory in the major team of the Carlsen career team.
Pranav is Buddy and Buddy is Pranav.
– Magnus Carlsen (@magnuscarlsen) October 7, 2023
Pranav had been in good shape lately before winning the world junior crown. He won the title of the Challengers at the Chennai Grand Masters 2024 in November and also won the double gold to young people in the world of under 18 Open Rapid and Blitz 2024.
Pranav’s victory came a day Aravindh Chithambaram won the prestigious Prague Chess Maters 2025.
