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The Velammal Vidyalaya institutions are known for producing India’s most celebrated chess players and Grandmasters.
Velammal has played a pivotal role in transforming Chennai into a chess powerhouse, training hundreds of budding players through expert coaching.
GM D Gukesh made history on Thursday by becoming the youngest World Chess Champion. The 18-year-old ousted Chinese GM Ding Liren in the final Game 14 of the World Chess Championships. As Gukesh becomes the youngest World Champion and only the second Indian Grandmaster to hold the title, his school, Velammal Vidyalaya in Chennai’s Mogappair, eagerly waits for the homecoming star who has added another feather to the school’s cap.
The Velammal Vidyalaya institutions are known for producing India’s most celebrated chess players and Grandmasters. The school’s legacy includes prodigies from D. Gukesh to R. Praggnanandhaa. Prominent female Grandmasters, such as Varshini S (daughter of Velavan), Vaishali R (sister of Praggnanandhaa), and R. Rakshitta, also hail from this school.
Velammal has played a pivotal role in transforming Chennai into a chess powerhouse, training hundreds of budding players through expert coaching. Since 2005, the school has been a breeding ground for chess prodigies and Grandmasters, but its institutions evolved further after the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa introduced the ‘7 to 17 program’ in 2013. Velammal went on to win the World School Chess Championship for five consecutive years, with both Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa contributing to their success in 2021.
The prestigious legacy of Velammal Institutions includes remarkable alumni such as SP Sethuraman, Leon Mendonca, K. Priyadharshan, B. Adhiban, Vishnu Prasanna, and several others. Students at Velammal regularly compete in tournaments from under-11 to under-17 levels.
Chennai’s rise as India’s chess capital is no surprise, as the city has long been home to one of the highest numbers of privately owned chess institutions in the country since the 1970s. The Soviet Cultural Centre in the heart of Madras was once the hub for chess enthusiasts, hosting the city’s first chess club, named after Mikhail Tal, the 1960 World Chess Champion. In the 1980s, world champion Viswanathan Anand spent hours there reading chess literature and competing with fellow players.
Though the Tal Chess Club no longer operates, institutions like Velammal and others have ensured that Chennai’s chess scene remains vibrant and continues to grow. Today, the city boasts over 60 recognized chess academies, including the Chess Gurukul by GM RB Ramesh, who mentors Praggnanandhaa.
In 1986, M.V. Muthuramalingam established the first school in Mogappair, Chennai, with just 183 students and 13 staff members. He named the institution Velammal Matriculation School in honor of his mother, Velammal. Since then, the Velammal group has expanded to 56 institutions across Chennai, Vellore, Karur, Theni, and Madurai.
