Vidit Santosh Gujrathi

Full name	Vidit Santosh Gujrathi
Country	India
Born	October 24, 1994 Nashik, India
Title	Grandmaster (2013)
Peak rating	2635 (October 2014)

Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (born 24 October 1994) is an Indian chess player. He attained the title of Grandmaster in January 2013, aged 18 years and 3 months. He is among the top ten Chess players from India.

He was born in Nasik on 24 October 1994 to Dr Santosh Gujrathi and Dr Nikta Santhosh Gujrathi. He did his early schooling at Fravashi Academy and was coached in Chess from an early age. In 2006, he finished second in the Asian Youth Championship in the U12 category, thus becoming a FIDE Master.

Gujrathi became an IM when he secured 7 points out of 13 in the Velammal 45th National A Chess Championship in Chennai in 2008. In 2008, he won the World Youth Chess Championship in the Sub junior category (Open U14), becoming the first Indian to do so. He scored 9 points out a of a possible 11, gaining his final norm to become an International Master.

He finished 2nd in the U-16 category of the World Youth Chess Championship in the year 2009, tying at 9 points to the eventual winner S.P. Sethuraman, also from India. In the World Junior Chess Championship in Chennai in 2011, held for U20 players, Vidit finished with 8 points out of 13, thus gaining his first GM norm.

In the Nagpur International Open in 2011, Vidit finished with 8 points out of 11, one point behind the eventual winner Ziaur Rahman. He gained his second GM norm in the tournament. Vidit achieved his final GM norm in the eighth round of the Rose Valley Kolkata Open Grandmasters’ chess tournament in 2012, where he finished third.

In 2013, Vidit won a bronze medal in the World Junior Chess Championship in Turkey in the Junior (U-20) category. Vidit finished third in the Hyderabad International Grandmasters chess tournament in 2013, winning Rs 1.5 lakh.

Vidit has been also performing in the top 10 of other tournaments, including the Commonwealth Championship in 2008. Throughout the years, Vidit was also coached by IM Anup Deshmukh, IM Roktim Bandopadhyay and GM Alon Greenfeld of Israel. Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte, who also coached Vidit earlier, said in 2013 that Vidit could reach an ELO rating of 2700 in two-three years. Kunte also considered Vidit's positional sense excellent, comparing him to the Indian chess prodigy P Harikrishna.