Straight Talk with Shahid

We take a look at the journey of IM Raja Ravi Sekhar, the main who played in six Olympiads. He played in all 16 National A from 1975-90 and often finished in top six, resulting in him qualifying for the Olympiads.

He won National Junior title at the age of 21, two years after he started playing chess. In 1975, he won National Junior, National B and National A which was a record at that time.

In this rare interview, we get to know about Ravi Sekhar's journey, how he got into chess, his memory of his first World Junior championship, being teammates with Vishy Anand and Dibyendu Barua, also playing against them. How he got his IM-norms, what happened when he got late for one of the games in British Championship.

He is also one of the few titled players in India who is also an International Arbiter. Why he stopped playing tournaments after 1993, how he got into coaching. His notable students being Adhiban Baskaran and Deepan Chakkravarthy Jeyakumar.

He also discusses some of his games against Anand, Barua, Neeraj Kumar Mishra, Stuart Conquest and Al Modiahki.

Don't miss this rare, power packed interview of Raja Ravi Sekhar where you get to know a lot about him.

In a new series titled, 'Straight Talk with Shahid', a talk show which is aimed to bring the untold story of various chess personalities from the chess universe who is an accomplished chess personality, someone who has a lot of stories to tell but the world is unaware of them.

The first guest in the debut episode is Bipin Shenoy, he has won the National Team Championship in 1984 along with Dibyendu Barua, Neeraj Kumar Mishra, Ananda Kumar Ghosh and Rajendra Singh. He qualified for nine consecutive National 'B' from 1983-90. He defeated India's first IM Manuel Aaron in the penutlimate round of National 'B' 1985.

He was felicitated by former Vice President of India Late Mohammad Hidaytullah at Maharashtra Niwas, Kolkata after winning the Piloo Mody Chess Championship at Lucknow in 1983.

He was among the first students of Alekhine Chess Club which has countless World Champions and World Class players participating in the iconic and one of the first international GM tournaments in the country back in the day - Goodricke International GM tournament which has witnessed players like Vishy Anand, Nigel Short, Daniel King, Viktor Korchnoi, Jonathan Speelman and many more legends of the game. He played and worked in the iconic tournament as a chess journalist where he had his first work as a chess reporter recommended by then and now Secretary and the backbone of Alekhine Chess Club - Soumen Majumdar.

He represented the first Indian team at Bangladesh from Alekhine Chess Club and since then the relationship between two chess playing only moved from strength to strength. Although he could not perform up to his expectations in his debut but it was a historic feat back then nevertheless.

Mr. Shenoy interviewed Smyslov, Korchnoi, Anand, Harikrishna, Edward Gufeld and many more legends of the game. He reported for The Telegraph, The Statesman, Times of India and Amritabazar Patrika.

That's not all he taught Surya Sekhar Ganguly, Sandipan Chanda and Neelotpal Das in their formative years. He was also instrumental in Mary Ann Gomes becoming a strong and accomplished player. Listen to the interview to find out some never before heard stories and anecdotes about their interesting encounter with Viktor Korchnoi.

Bipin was the first person to have started chess in various schools across Kolkata and he has taught in more than ten schools. He still teaches at Future Hope School where he regularly interacted with English cricketers like Kevin Pietersen and others when they visited the school and much more.

He also has a full time job with New India Assurance where his entire office supported him in his pursuit of chess.  Don't miss absolutely packed 80+ minutes of debut episode about the man who knows four languages English, Marathi, Hindi and Bangla, where you get to hear a lot about this man's journey in chess.