“In life, or in business, as in chess, one must play all sorts of positions well, seize the opportunities when available, defend if forced to, and attack when possible, but always adhere to the dictates of the truth of the position”, Ashish Pandey, 27, International chess player, firmly believes in this philosophy. Ashish credits the strategic thinking he developed in the past decade of playing chess for being able to crack CAT with a whopping 98 percentile.
“The most inquisitive thing about chess is the coordination of the pieces which has taught me the essence of team spirit and helped me breakthrough my introverted nature”, says Ashish, elucidating how chess has transformed his life. Born in a typical Indian family, where education is given more importance than sports, Ashish has faced several ups and downs throughout this journey but has also managed to self-fund himself for various tournaments including the international matches.
Ashish played numerous classical, blitz and rapid chess tournaments and on winning one of the contests he got an opportunity to play against his role model, Viswanathan Anand, Indian chess grandmaster and a former World Chess Champion. “This opportunity felt surreal and the enthralling lessons learned through this experience are to be cherished for a lifetime”, he said. Ashish is short by just 300 points of becoming an international chess master and 400 points short of becoming a Grandmaster. He is looking forward to achieving these titles in the near future.
While pursuing under-graduation he worked as a college chess coach and nurtured many teams not only in the aspect of skill development but also the competitive spirit. After graduation, Ashish worked at a Chartered Accountant firm where he was awarded the best performer award. The innate passion for the sport led Ashish to coach young children of the age group of 5-15 years post work.
Ashish then worked for a start-up at IIT Bombay where he had an opportunity to explore multiple domains and he excelled at every single one of them in the entirety of the time he spent there. This spurred his interest in entrepreneurship and he decided to pursue a Master of Business Administration. He prepared for CAT in spite of his rigorous schedule and today he is pursuing his dreams at IIM Rohtak. He continues his enthusiasm towards chess by coaching the chess team of IIM Rohtak.
On a concluding note, he says, “Chess teaches one to think from the opponent's perspective, time management, and decision making. These traits are essential to excel in life”. He aims to bring about a change in the perspective of the society towards building a career in the sports domain to the best of his capabilities by nurturing the young minds who would impact the future of the nation tomorrow.