Indian Personalities Outside Professional Chess Who are Passionate About the Game

The AIM Chess League 2026 is rooted in the belief that chess offers far more than competitive entertainment. It was primarily created to bring India’s IT and technology ecosystem into a competitive chess ecosystem. 

The reasoning is that chess is not just a game of competition but one that develops pattern recognition, strategic thinking, patience, risk assessment, decision-making under pressure, and long-term planning. Many of these lessons eventually compound into skills that extend far beyond the board.

This is also reflected in the number of notable Indian personalities across industries who have either played chess competitively, actively supported the game, funded chess ecosystems, or publicly spoken about its influence on how they think and work. 

Here are nine notable Indian personalities outside professional chess who have publicly associated themselves with the game in meaningful ways.

Yuzvendra Chahal

Yuzvendra Chahal was a competitive chess player before becoming a professional cricketer. He won the National Under-12 Chess Championship and represented India at the Asian and World Youth Chess Championships in the early 2000s. Chahal achieved a FIDE rating of 1956 and competed internationally against several future grandmasters. 

He eventually left chess because of the high costs involved in continuing as a professional player and the lack of sponsorship opportunities. Chahal has said chess helped him develop patience, calculation, and tactical thinking, which later influenced his bowling in cricket. 

He then shifted fully to cricket and became one of India’s leading white-ball leg spinners. Chahal has represented India in ODIs and T20Is, played key roles in multiple ICC tournaments, and became the first bowler in IPL history to take 200 wickets.

Aamir Khan

Besides earning a name as one of India’s most influential actors and filmmakers, Aamir Khan is a longtime chess enthusiast and has publicly spoken about playing the game regularly in his free time. He played an exhibition match against five-time World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand during the launch of the Maharashtra Chess League in 2015 and described himself as an “amateur” who loves the game. 

He has also expressed interest in acting in a film based on chess or Anand’s life. He once revealed that his Dhoom 3 co-star Katrina Kaif nearly beat him in a game during filming. At the age of nine, future Woman International Master Dhyani Dave reportedly defeated Khan in a chess game on the set of Lagaan. 

In recent years, he also participated in online celebrity chess events alongside Anand and was recently spotted publicly playing chess on his laptop during a paparazzi interaction. 

Anand Mahindra

Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Mahindra Group, one of India’s largest multinational conglomerates, is also one of the most visible corporate supporters of chess in India. 

Though not known as a competitive player, he has spent years publicly promoting Indian chess talent, especially younger grandmasters such as Gukesh Dommaraju, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Divya Deshmukh, and Koneru Humpy. Mahindra played a central role in creating the Global Chess League through Tech Mahindra in partnership with FIDE, helping launch the world’s first franchise-based professional chess league. 

He has frequently described chess as a model for strategic thinking, leadership, and long-term planning in business. His social media presence has consistently amplified Indian chess achievements globally, especially during the recent surge of Indian dominance in world chess. 

Nandan Nilekani 

Infosys Co-Founder and Chairman Nandan Nilekani has often used chess as a metaphor for strategy, exponential growth, and long-term thinking in technology and business. One of his most frequently referenced examples is the “second half of the chessboard” concept, which he used in speeches and discussions about AI, computing, and digital transformation in India. 

Though not known as a competitive chess player, Nilekani is closely associated with the intellectual culture around chess in India’s technology and startup ecosystem. 

He has repeatedly linked chess-style thinking—involving planning, systems design, and anticipating multiple moves ahead—to entrepreneurship and governance. These ideas also influenced his work on Aadhaar, UPI, and India Stack, where he focused on building scalable public digital infrastructure. 

Nilekani is best known as the architect of India’s Aadhaar identity system and broader digital public infrastructure movement.

Samay Raina

Stand-up comedian and YouTuber Samay Raina became one of the biggest drivers of India’s online chess boom during the COVID-19 lockdowns. He started streaming chess with ChessBase India’s Sagar Shah and turned the game into mainstream entertainment through comedy-led content, celebrity tournaments, and collaborations with grandmasters. 

Raina created Comedians on Board, which brought actors, comedians, cricketers, and streamers into chess, and later co-created the Chess Super League with ChessBase India and Nodwin Gaming. He has streamed with legends of the game such as Magnus Carlsen, Garry Kasparov, Hikaru Nakamura, Judit Polgár, and Viswanathan Anand. 

Anand publicly credited Raina for making chess less intimidating by adding comedic elements while playing the game with India’s entertainment fraternity online. 

Raina himself is an active chess player on Chess.com, where he has crossed a rapid rating of 1900 and won events such as the $10,000 Botez Bullet Invitational in 2021 and SuperPogChamps in 2025.

RG Chandramogan

Industrialist and Founder and Chairman of Hatsun Agro Products, RG Chandramogan, has become one of India’s most significant private patrons of chess infrastructure. 

Through Hatsun Agro’s CSR initiatives, he founded the Hatsun Chess Academy in Tamil Nadu, a residential training centre focused on producing elite Indian chess talent through long-term coaching, fitness, meditation, and structured training. 

Chandramogan publicly stated that building world-class chess champions could take “10 to 12 years” and committed sustained corporate funding towards that goal. The academy, led by coaches including Grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna, has already trained multiple nationally ranked junior players and emerging international competitors. 

Chandramogan’s vision has been widely credited for creating one of India’s most ambitious grassroots chess ecosystems outside government institutions. 

Notably, Hatsun Agro Product is behind brands such as Arun Icecreams, Arokya Milk, and Ibaco, and one of India’s largest private dairy entrepreneurs.

Aarti Lohia

Indian-born, London-based philanthropist, chess advocate, and contemporary art collector Aarti Lohia has emerged as a major supporter of youth chess development through the SP Lohia Foundation and her involvement in her son, International Master Sohum Lohia’s career. 

As Chairperson of the SP Lohia Foundation, which funds projects across healthcare, education, humanitarian relief, arts, culture, and sports, she has backed chess education initiatives, documentaries, and institutional support for the game in the UK and India. 

Lohia describes herself as a full-time ‘chess mum’ and has publicly campaigned for greater recognition and funding for chess, even lobbying British policymakers on the subject. 

Under her support, Sohum became a multiple-time British youth champion and one of England’s top young chess prospects. Beyond chess, Lohia is internationally recognised as one of the world’s leading South Asian contemporary art patrons and serves on advisory councils for institutions including Tate Modern, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the South London Gallery.

Anand Deshpande

Tech entrepreneur Anand Deshpande is a prominent supporter of Indian chess and one of Indian Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi’s most visible corporate backers. 

Through Persistent Systems, Deshpande has sponsored Gujrathi during major international tournaments, including the Candidates cycle and publicly celebrated his rise into the world elite. Deshpande has frequently spoken about chess as a model for strategic thinking, leadership, and disciplined decision-making in technology and business. 

He has hosted chess events, collaborated with ChessBase India, and used his platform to amplify Indian chess achievements during the recent boom led by players such as Gukesh Dommaraju, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, and Gujrathi. 

Within India’s tech ecosystem, Deshpande is regarded as part of the growing group of founders and executives helping normalise long-term institutional support for chess. 

Outside chess, he is best known as the Founder and Chairman of Persistent Systems, one of India’s major enterprise software and digital engineering companies.

PR Venketrama Raja

Industrialist and Ramco Group Chairman PR Venketrama Raja is one of the most influential corporate patrons in Indian chess history and a longtime chess player himself. Raja has publicly spoken about playing chess since his college days and remains an active online chess player even while leading the multi-billion-dollar Ramco Group. 

As the then President of the All India Chess Federation (for two terms in 2014-20) and former head of the Tamil Nadu State Chess Association, he played a major role in modernising Indian chess administration, increasing prize money, reforming team selection around Elo ratings, and improving player support systems. 

Through Ramco, he sponsored Viswanathan Anand before he became world champion and later backed stars including Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Vaishali Rameshbabu. Raja also funded India’s Olympiad teams, supported the World Chess Championship 2013 match between Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand, and helped build Tamil Nadu into India’s strongest chess ecosystem.

Register for AIM Chess League Today

The AIM Chess League will run from July to October, beginning with a national online league from July 6 to August 31, followed by offline qualifiers across India in September, and concluding with a grand final at Cypher 2026 in Bengaluru from October 7 to 9. Interested participants can register and find more details about the schedule on the website.

The format is designed for working professionals. A total prize pool of ₹10 lakh is allocated across individual and team categories, and a full access pass to Cypher 2026— India’s biggest AI summit & expo, where the best minds in the country come together to shape the future of technology.