A job offer in a Germany-based IT company was on hand, but Anuj Shrivatri chose a career in chess over being a software professional. He doesn’t regret that decision. The 22-year-old provided cheer to India by becoming the country’s 100th Grandmaster on Sunday when it was celebrating the festival of lights.

Ever since V.S. Rathanvel became the 99th GM, the question of who would the 100th was on the minds of chess-lovers. And, Anuj did it, winning the seventh ASEAN Plus individual open chess championship in the Philippines.

“It feels very good to become a GM and being the country’s 100th is special,” he told The Hindu.

“I had been trying to become a GM and winning the tournament earned me the title directly. All the hard work paid off.”

He admitted there was some pressure at the business-end but he made it a point not to overthink and miss out on the opportunity. “I played some really good chess in the last two rounds to win and clinch the title,” Anuj, who became the first-ever GM from Madhya Pradesh said.

Having realised the GM dream, he said “the focus is to cross the 2600 barrier and win lot of tournaments.”

Introduced to chess by his father (Ashok) at the age of six, he took a liking to it and made rapid strides with support from the family.

“I can’t thank my father and mother enough. They encouraged me to pursue chess when there was a good job offer,” Anuj, who admires World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen and Indian legend Viswanathan Anand, said.

“Openings and end-games are my forte and time-management is something which I can improve on,” he added.

Having chosen the game of 64 squares over cloud computing, he is already on cloud nine and aiming for the sky.