More than half of their sessions, though, is dedicated to making Sarin, widely thought of as a speed demon, better in Classical. “He has to find his own way,” Prasanna said. “He is bit of a unique talent, I would say. That is what I have observed. I have seen any player approach chess or train chess in the way he does. We are trying to figure out what we can do to make him show results based on the way he approaches chess, based on his results. His early chess education is not traditional, there’s a gap there.”

There’s several things at play here. When Prasanna says ‘is not traditional’, he means that most of Sarin’s formative education has been through online chess. To frame this in some context, Prasanna kept Gukesh away from engines and online chess for a very long time. Prasanna referenced this aspect. “I worked with Gukesh when he was very young so I had the opportunity to shape him. Now, I have to adapt to Nihal,” he said with a smile. “His (Sarin) approach to the game is very different but also how do we turn it into results? There’s definitely a lot of talent, I have never seen someone like him but we have to make it into something practical. How to turn that talent into results?”

The talent is evident. At the ongoing Chennai Grand Masters, the young Indian has had winning chances in two of the three games. In the endgame, though, an inaccuracy here and a misjudgment there has cost him. On Saturday, two mistakes against Vidit Gujrathi sent him from a winning middlegame to a lost endgame.

Srinath Narayanan, one of Sarin’s earlier coaches, sang from the same hymn sheet. “It’s a matter of confidence,” he said. “He’s hard on himself because he was once seen as the leader of this young pack but now he’s seen his peers go past him. If you see these three games here, he has actually played well, but not finishing off the games is a matter of confidence. He needs to build that back up.”

He has six more games here before featuring in the Grand Swiss and the World Cup. Don’t bet against him because the talent is clearly there.

Results (Rd 3)

Masters: Vincent Keymer bt Murali Karthikeyan, Anish Giri drew with V Pranav, Vidit Gujrathi bt Nihal Sarin, Arjun Erigaisi bt Ray Robson, Awonder Liang bt Jorden van Foreest

Challengers

Abhimanyu Puranik bt GB Harshavardhan, Leon Mendonca bt R Vaishali, A Baskaran drew with D Harika, M Pranesh bt P Iniyan, Aryan CHopra drew with Diptayan Ghosh