FT article: India’s VC-backed chess academy churns out champions across the board

The latest Financial Times article involving the chess world - "India's VC-backed chess academy churns out champions across the board" - talks about the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy (Waca for short). It's an example of how world-class expertise (former chess world champion Viswanathan Anand) has combined with patronage from WestBridge venture capital firm to create new champions through training and sponsorship.

While amateur chess improvers will not make the world champion grade, the formula for success is still similar: talent (of whatever level) + personal interest + time investment + master-guided training = skill improvement. We are fortunate at the amateur level that there now exists a great deal of master-guided training in a wide variety of accessible forms - video and online courses, books, coaching either live or asynchronous, etc. Making sense of which content and formats work the best for us as individual players is another challenge, admittedly.

One of the themes of this blog is a holistic approach to chess skill development, including cross-training and pulling practices and lessons from other sports and training programs. This is also valued at the highest level of chess training, as noted in the article and worth mentioning here:

Singhal said that at Waca they tried to think about “multiple intelligent perspectives . . . is there anything else that’s a little X Factor”. He noted the decision, unusual in the world of chess, to bring South African cricket coach Paddy Upton to help Dommaraju prepare mentally for the world championship.