19 Boards Won, One Hero Made: Aravindh Chithambaram's Simul at Chola Chess Club

by Jyotsna Bhushan - 06/09/2026

On a busy Saturday afternoon at Phoenix Marketcity in Velachery, twenty chess boards sat in neat rows in the middle of the mall's open concourse. Shoppers slowed down, phones came out, and a small crowd gathered around the ropes. At the centre of it all was Grandmaster Aravindh Chithambaram, one of India's finest players, walking board to board in a simultaneous exhibition hosted by the Chola Chess Club and by the end of the afternoon, he had beaten 19 of his 20 opponents.? Photos: Neeraj.

Aravindh Chithambaram in his element!

It's the kind of scene that has become a familiar Saturday fixture at this particular corner of the mall because the Chola Chess Club runs every Saturday. Except this week, the man behind the board wasn't a local coach or a visiting titled player, but one of the strongest grandmasters India has produced in the last decade.

Aravindh Chithambaram with Aarthie Ramaswamy and Kunal M.

A Homecoming After Paris

The timing of the visit had its own story. Aravindh had just returned from the Esports World Cup in Paris, where he competed for team S8UL. The same franchise made headlines in 2025 for signing him alongside fellow Indian GM Nihal Sarin, a first for Indian chess in the esports space. A week after playing on the world stage, Aravindh was back in his home city, staying at the Chola guest house, before heading over to the mall for a very different kind of chess: a simul exhibition for children, club regulars, and curious passers-by.

The table was occupied by little opponents eager to play with Aravindh!

Twenty Boards, One Grandmaster

The simul was run out of the Chola Chess Club, a free weekend drop-in initiative that has been meeting at Phoenix Marketcity every Saturday from 3 to 6 p.m. since it launched in May 2026, as a joint effort between Chola Chess, ChessBase India, and Chess Gurukul. The club had already made a splash on its very first day, drawing 145 walk-in players of every age and skill level, which is a sign of just how much appetite there is for accessible chess in the city.

The anticipation before Aravindh makes his first move.

For this special edition, the tables were rearranged into a simul formation, and Aravindh moved briskly from board to board, "always quick," as one onlooker put it, the trademark speed of a player rated among the world's best. WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy, co-founder of Chess Gurukul alongside GM R.B. Ramesh, coordinated the event on the ground, while Chola Chess's founders, Kanika Subbiah and Vellayan Subbiah of Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company, stayed to watch through to the very end, alongside club organiser Balaji.

The Kids Who Came to Play

Some of the opponents had travelled a long way for their few minutes across the board from a super-GM. Shravin Basnett made the trip all the way from Gangtok with his mother, just for the chance to test himself against Aravindh. Two young players from South Korea, siblings Yujun Huh and Jion Huh, were visiting Chennai and got to add a game against an Indian grandmaster to their trip. Also on the boards was Wooju Mo, a Korean player who now lives in India and trains as a student of Chess Gurukul.

A shot of one of Aravindh's opponents: Utterly Focused.

As the games wore on, the boards thinned out one by one until only one player was left standing. Bharathan, a Chess Gurukul student, gave Aravindh the toughest fight of the afternoon and was the sole player to hand the grandmaster a defeat, finishing the simul 19–1 in Aravindh's favour. It was a moment the young player will likely remember for a long time: making a grandmaster stop and think is, in itself, a small victory.

Another click of the adorable challengers in the Simul.

More Than Just a Score

Simuls like this one are as much about access as they are about results. For most of the children on those twenty boards, this was a rare chance to sit across from a player who has beaten the likes of Levon Aronian and Arjun Erigaisi in classical chess, and who has represented India on both the traditional and esports stages of the game. That kind of exposure that is free, unscripted, and happening in the middle of a shopping mall is exactly the space Chola Chess has been trying to build since it began running training camps back in January 2025.

Aravindh with the organising team of the Chola Chess Club simul.

Chola Chess, the CSR initiative behind the club, has quietly become one of Indian chess's most active grassroots programmes: over 100 training camps conducted, more than 1,300 players trained, all completely free of cost, producing India's newest Grandmaster, Harshavardhan GB in their round-robin tournament. All this under the guidance of GM R.B. Ramesh and WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy.

The Phoenix Marketcity club is its most public-facing arm, which requires no registration, no fee, just chess boards set up on a Saturday afternoon, open to absolutely anyone who wants to sit down and play.