16 February,2021 10:24 AM IST | Mumbai | Partnered Content
Vidit Gujarathi and Saurabh
It started with Samay Raina, Vidit Gujrathi bringing Indian chess on Youtube in a totally new way. And then India won the first online Chess Olympiad. Online Chess in India got more popular than ever! And throughout this, Chesspuns kept growing gradually from just a meme page to an online Chess community that now has even grandmasters enjoying and loving its jokes!
Saurabh Bhageria, the 24yrs old student from NIT Kurukshetra has almost no such interest in Chess either. "Samay made it happen, and even I don't know how I got included in this amazing community. I might have made some good memes, but Chesspuns was lucky either to get shoutouts from so many famous people like Samay, Vidit, Sagar Shah, Tania Sachdeva, Adhiban, Radjabov⦠You cannot be thankful enough for that."
About Chess Players, IMs and GMs, Saurabh has only good things to say! "You see them being aggressive, competitive but when the game's over, they are amazing and humble superhumans! Luckily, I got to meet Vidit once, the first Grandmaster I have ever met, and he was the humblest person I have ever known!"
"During COB2 and COB3, many of those participants shared my content in their stories." Comedians on Board was a hit, thanks to Samay who brought this group of immensely popular celebrities interacting over online chess!
Chesspuns has millions of views on its memes per month. Recently, the Instagram page launched its own weekly chess tournament on Chess.com by the name of Blundersliga! "I am planning to engage my audience in not only enjoying chess jokes, but also get into playing chess a bit. After all, that's the motive. That's what we are all working for. To bring Chess into mainstream gaming in India. It's already popular in many countries. There are so many Chess streamers who are loved and admired not only as streamers but as players either. And when you look at our Indian new age players, especially the juniors, there's no doubt that we have huge potential in our country! We topped the Olympiad this year, could there be a better motivation?"
About his future plans, Saurabh says that there's a lot to do! "We're planning to organize OTB chess tournaments all across the country in upcoming years. It'll take time for sure, but then there are so many people trying their best for this journey to keep going.
When asked what was the best moment he had, he has some pretty surprising things to say! "Carlsen saw one of Chesspun's Instagram stories! I know Carlsen doesn't even know me, but for me, it was enough! Kind of a milestone! Would I make 1000 more memes just to get him to my page again once? Of course I will ! I mean, he is Magnus!"
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