Srinath Narayanan is India's man to count onNEW DELHI: It was the final round of the Global Chess League (GCL) round-robin last Saturday in Bengaluru, and American Gambits needed a big win, with an eight-point margin, to reach the final. Mumba Masters were the opponents.
As the match wore on, the Gambits, playing with Black, went all out. Javokhir Sindarov, playing on the Icon board, won his game.
On the next board, Indian grandmaster Nihal Sarin had an early advantage, which translated almost into a winning position. But then, calamity struck.
The clock ran out. Sarin lost on time.
His team lost with him. The next moment, Nihal was pressed against the side glass of the dugout, face to the panel, looking as though the gates might open and the tears might come at any second.
Then he felt a palm settle lightly on his shoulder. It was none other than the Gambits' captain and coach, Srinath Narayanan."
com later during an exclusive interaction. " You usually need some time and space for the emotions to dial down.
And I think that's pretty much the only thing that can heal things." Srinath with Nihal SarinThere was no tactical debrief that night, no post-mortem of the time scramble.
Srinath took the squad out for a team dinner instead. Later, back at the hotel, they pulled out board games, like Salem and Avalon, and played into the night."
We tried to take our minds off these things," Srinath recalled with a smile. " And then at night, we played some fun games that helped us cope with it."
The response the next day suggested it had worked. Facing the same Mumba Masters in the third-place match, the Gambits crushed them across both legs.
Nihal won both his games. The Gambits took bronze.
Srinath was there; he is here too" We are overall quite happy, because it would have been very depressing and disappointing if we had lost today," Srinath said, acknowledging his team's performance in GCL 2026. "" We felt like we were definitely one of the contenders for winning the tournament.
And we played that way for the most part. So we just lost out on those last two matches, where things got decided at the very end, in the last few seconds."
