GMPranav Anand

Pranav Anand grew up in Bengaluru and chose chess when his father offered him a choice between a chessboard and a Ludo board. His grandfather also helped him learn the game. He first trained with L. Seshadri in Mysore, then worked with Jayaram Ramanna, Vishal Sareen and V. Saravanan. Ramanna made endgame study an early priority, and Pranav developed a strong interest in chess books and difficult tactical exercises. He won successive Karnataka age-group championships between 2015 and 2017 before concentrating increasingly on international competition. His international-master norms came at the Rilton Cup, Biel and the Aeroflot Open. Although he had completed the norms by 2020, the pandemic delayed his opportunity to meet the remaining rating requirement. A victory over Stefan Djuric in Serbia completed that task in February 2021.

The following year he won the World Under-16 Championship, completing the grandmaster requirements during the same event. His success at Biel continued with an unbeaten victory in its 2023 rapid tournament. He scored eight points from nine games in that event. In 2025 he finished runner-up in the Biel Masters Open. His early coaches described his style as active and positional, supported by a grounding in classical games and endings. Pranav has cited Viswanathan Anand, Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen as players whose games helped shape his understanding.