Kalyani Sirin scores her maiden WGM norm in Arad, pumps up her Elo to 2365
Born in 2010, 16-year-old Kalyani Sirin from Kerala is an incredible player. She likes to play in open tournaments, her chess.com Elo is 2800+ in blitz. In 2026, Kalyani has moved ahead with great rigour and persistence and achieved her first WGM norm. She also gained massive rating in Europe and her Live Elo is somewhere close to 2365! Absolutely stunning!
Indian chess is seeing the rise of some amazing young talents! Recently, we reported about Deekshitha Modipalli gaining over 400 Elo points and rising to 2400 Elo! Here's another girl who is doing incredibly well. Meet Kalyani Sirin.
I first met Kalyani during the World Juniors 2024. She was the only girl who was playing in the open section. I could already sense something special in her. And then I got to know her online blitz Elo - a massive 2793 in blitz on chess.com! Wow! That blew my mind. Born in 2010, Kalyani is just 16 years old.
GM Stany has been Kalyani's long time trainer and he spoke about financial constraints that were hampering Kalyani's progress. This is when Ambit decided to support Kalyani's journey via HelpChess. GM Swayams Mishra also joined Kalyani's journey as her trainer and all these elements coming together has created favourable conditions for Kalyani to flourish.
Kalyani's rating fluctuated between 2100 to 2200 for quite some time. Even after she achieved the WIM title her rating wasn't growing. But Sirin (Kalyani's father) had a long term approach towards the chess improvement journey. "Kalyani participated in a lot of tournaments in India - Madurai GM, Odisha GM, Tamil Nadu closed Round Robin, National Women's Team Tournament, National Rapid and Blitz. I believe it is important for her to continue playing in Indian tournaments as well, rather than just focusing on international events." This proved to be the right decision as when Kalyani eventually went to Europe, she was ready!
First stop was Serbia Open and then the Paracin Open. Kalyani gained 67 Elo points in both these events and pumped up her rating to 2217. Then came the big jump! Kalyani travelled to Romania to take part in two events - Brasov Open and Arad Open - both part of the Romanian Grand Prix.
With this performance Kalyani gained 102 Elo points and pumped up her rating to 2319. Here is her final round win against Sasha-Matei Craciun (2263).
After her fine performance in Brasov, Kalyani went and played in Arad. This was a very special tournament for the youngster as she not only gained a lot of rating points but also achieved her first WGM norm.
Although Chess-results says she will gain 91.2 Elo, her k-factor would already change to 20 (from 40) as she has crossed 2300 on the live ratings after Brasov. Most likely Kalyani's gain would be 45.6 Elo. Which means that her Live Elo would be 2365. That's a massive jump! And it is also a fruit of the hard work she put in all these years and playing in Indian events.
Speaking to ChessBase India, Kalyani's coach GM Swayams Mishra says, "When I started working with Kalyani, one of the main objectives was to help her break out of a rating plateau. I had already heard very good things about her from her trainer, GM Stany. She was always a very hardworking player, but for some reason, she had been stuck around the same rating range for quite some time.
During one of the events, the Gujarat GM, I felt that there was perhaps something psychological that was bothering her. I spoke to her father, Mr. Sirin, and suggested that maybe some changes were needed and that he should have a conversation with Kalyani about it.
I honestly don’t know exactly what happened after that conversation, but something clearly changed. Since then, she hasn’t really looked back. She started playing some amazing games, and I could see a different level of confidence and belief in her chess."
Kalyani is supported by the HelpChess Foundation via Ambit Scholarship for the last 1.5 years with an amount of Rs.5 lakh per year. We thank Ambit for their amazing support. We wish Kalyani the best for her WGM title. We are pretty sure that she is going to achieve that very soon and not stop in her journey towards become one of the best players of India and the world!
