Chess champ balances academic career

When Saptorshi Gupta first sat down at a chess board aged nine, learning the skills of the game was somewhat secondary.

“I was a very shy and timid kid, and my dad thought it would be nice to introduce me to chess so that I could meet more kids of my age and open up through the game,” recalls Saptorshi, pictured, who is now a PhD student and graduate teaching assistant in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences.

However, Saptorshi’s skills on and off the board progressed swiftly at the Behala Chess School, near his home in Kolkata.

“My coach advised my dad to take me to tournaments … so that’s when I started travelling with my dad and coming out of my introverted self. When I played my first nationals at the age of 11, we travelled from Kolkata to Chennai – and I have lost count of how many national championships I’ve played since.”

Recent successes have included winning a New Zealand national chess event in November – the Fischer-Random Championship – and becoming a member of the New Zealand Chess Federation selection committee, which selects New Zealand’s players for international events, including the Chess Olympiad (the Olympics of chess) held in Uzbekistan this September.

“I’m an outsider, so it’s an incredibly high honour to be a part of this important decision-making process, and to see these players go on to do very well in tournaments makes me very satisfied.”

After topping his biostatistics masters programme in Mumbai, Saptorshi was drawn to study in New Zealand by the work of Dr Simon Thornley in epidemiology and biostatistics. He is now wrapping up the thesis for his PhD, where he’s involved in exploring the relationship between scabies and immune-mediated diseases of childhood, like acute rheumatic fever, supervised by Simon as well as Dr Gerhard Sundborn and Professor Cameron Grant.

The confidence he’s gained through playing competitive chess have come in handy, he says, when presenting his research at conferences, where the chess connections have continued.

Last year when he travelled to present his research at a conference in Austria, he tacked on a trip to the Czech Republic to compete in an international chess tournament, where he placed third. Then, with a few days to spare before starting a summer school in Dublin, he travelled to the Irish city of Carlow to play in a tournament where he placed joint-first.

Two particular skills he’s learnt playing competitive chess have also helped him succeed academically.
“One is the ability to hyper focus for a long number of hours,” he says.
“If I’m coding or writing a research paper I can work for a long stretch without losing my focus, even if I’m in a stressful situation, like if I have a submission due.
“The second and most important skill is not being risk averse. In chess, we’re taught that the biggest risk is to not take a risk.

“I’m not shy to take on a big challenge or big role, because I know that if I get selected, I can work my way through it and, basically, there’s nothing in this world that is not achievable.”

In the world of chess, the higher your rating, the better you’re ranked; Saptorshi is currently rated 2105 on the International Chess Federation’s FIDE ratings (for context, the world’s top-ranked player, Norwegian Grand Master Magnus Carlsen, has a 2840 rating). Saptorshi’s aim within the next few years is to become an International Master, which requires a rating of 2400, for which he’ll need to play in more international tournaments in Europe.

In the meantime, he’s also been nurturing the aspirations of young players as a coach, including one who last year represented New Zealand at two under-12 world championship tournaments. It’s been a full-circle experience, he says.

“When I was training this kid for his world championship match, I noticed he was also shy. So, one of the main pieces of advice I gave him was, ‘you’re going to a tournament, and you need to be serious, but also focus on making friends from new countries.

“I had a talk with his parents last week, and they were like, ‘he’s now a completely different person after travelling abroad and listening to your advice’. At the end of the day, it’s not just about chess skills or accolades, but also what you learn from the game and how you take that into your life.”

– Caitlin Sykes