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Of course, it was almost a decade ago and Koshy might have lost his youthful patience to fight on. Still, he remains the best chess player Kerala can boast of. However, Koshy cannot be called a product of Kerala though his parents M V Koshy and Marrykutty Koshy are Malayalees and he was born in Kerala. Koshy was brought up and the player in him was moulded in Bihar as his father was employed in ACC and the entire family was in Chaibasa (now in Jharkhand). Koshy started to play chess "quite late", when he was 16 years old, unlike the present youngsters who "begin to practise the game when they are five or six years old". A friend, "who knew chess", was responsible for evoking interest in the game. In a year's time Koshy began to participate in local- and college-level tournaments and win prizes.
The annual Remfry Rating tournament, which was held at Delhi in 1980, was a turning point in Koshy's life. Inspector General B Verma of the CRPF, who was an ardent lover of chess, was the chief guest and when Koshy was qualified, Verma invited him to join the CRPF. After six months of training in Delhi, Koshy moved to Mount Abu with "IG Sahib". There was a good library and all facilities at Mount Abu. His sole business was to learn, practise and master the game under the loving care of "Verma Sahib". After three years in the CRPF, Koshy joined TISCO, Jamshedpur, where he founded the Tata Chess Centre. He served as coach and organised many national and international tournaments. Playing became secondary during this period. But by 1991, he began to concentrate on it again. The concentration culminated in the IM Norm, which he won in the Asian Zonal tournament held at Isfahan (Iran) in 1993. He became the national-B champion in 1994 and was qualified for the Indian team in 1995. In 1996, Koshy attributes the secret of his success to the positional play and the strong execution of the endgame coupled with his unwillingness to yield to draws. "I would keep on trying. I would lose 20-30 games but win 70-80 games," he says. Koshy finds the same fighting spirit and interest in the endgame in 16-year-old Grandmaster Harikrishna whom he coached between 1997-2001. Harikrishna is not like the other children of his age who are interested only in an opening game, which goes with attacking, combinative and tactical play. They find the endgame boring as it is more technical, with minute strategies and accurate positional play. As a coach, Koshy's advice to the youngsters is that they should give equal importance to opening, middle and endgames. He advises them to participate in tournaments as "a tournament is the best teacher". Koshy, who finds tremendous growth of chess in India where there are a number of talented players, tournaments and sponsorship, is quite hopeful that India will be a chess super power, like Russia, in 8-10 years' time. At the same time, he laments the lack of support for chess in Kerala. "There are talented players like Olympian Anil Kumar, experienced Muraleedharan and Asian Junior Bronze medallist Ratnakaran. But there is not much sponsorships or job opportunities." Koshy "Harikrishna, Anand, Sasikiran," quick came the reply when I darted a clichéd question. However, finding the student's name top the teacher's favourites list may not be so clichéd.
Salil Jose Readers' response/inputs can be e-mailed to salil@chennaionline.com.
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Super Grandmaster and former world champion Viswanathan Anand once said, "No one wants to play with
Koshy in the last round when what is needed is a simple draw." Anand said this after encountering an uncompromising International Master V
Koshy, who never draws and used to be an uncomfortable opponent to face with in crucial qualifying rounds.
When chess captivated him fully, he discontinued studies and moved to Patna for "better exposure". And he began to participate in national-level tournaments by the end of the '70s.
Koshy joined ONGC and came to Chennai, "the Mecca and Medina of chess". In the same year, he again emerged champion in the national-B championship.
stays at Anna Nagar, Chennai, with his wife Anita and two children, Ashi and Vishy. Making use of the opportunities in ONGC and in Chennai, he plans concentrate more on the game, aspiring for higher norms.
