(About) Since 2008 — Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai

About
Kingside.

A chess academy started on a borrowed classroom table by one International Master and six students. Eighteen years later: 1,200 students, a 64-board tournament hall and an online studio teaching nine countries.

Students playing in the Kingside tournament hall, photographed in black and white

(01) Our story

From one table
to sixty-four.

Founder IM Vikram Raghavan tells it as a game in five moves.

2008

The opening

Vikram returns from the European circuit and starts Saturday classes for six children in a borrowed school classroom in Adyar.

1. e4
2011

First title on the wall

Student Harish Venkat wins the Tamil Nadu U-11 championship — the academy's first state title. Enrolment triples that summer.

2. Nf3
2016

A home on Kalakshetra Road

Kingside opens its own centre in Thiruvanmiyur with four classrooms, a library of 2,000 books and a 64-board tournament hall.

3. Bc4
2020

The board goes online

Within two weeks every batch moves online. Kingside Live is born and now teaches students in nine countries from a dedicated studio.

4. O-O
2026

Today

Six titled coaches, 1,200 students coached, 186 FIDE-rated players and a monthly rated tournament series. The middlegame has just begun.

5. d4!

(02) Mission

To teach every student — five or fifty-five — to think before they move, on the board and off it.

(03) Vision

A Chennai where every school has a chess club, and every club has a coach who still plays.

(04) Teaching philosophy

Four pieces,
four principles.

Pawn

Fundamentals first

Small steps, never skipped. Every strong player is built on hundreds of basic patterns.
Knight

Creativity

The knight jumps where others can't. We reward original ideas, even when they don't work yet.
Bishop

Long-term planning

Diagonals reach across the board. Students learn to think five moves and five months ahead.
King

Composure

The game ends when the king falls. We train calm decisions under clock pressure.