Indian Cricketer Venkatesh Iyer Plays Chess with World #4 Javokhir Sindarov!

It's making your vlog so—

Your favorite players, American Gambits, are in the house. Let's hear it for them, ladies and gentlemen. And of course, this is the RCB Bar and Cafe. I did tell you that you can spot cricketers coming in every now and then. We have our very own RCB player, Venkatesh Iyer, in the house as well. Let's hear it for Venkatesh Iyer. They're going to be gracing the stage to say hi to you in just a few moments. Who are here as well. We are a mixed royalty this evening. Join us, Venky. Welcome. Watch the ceiling. Yes. Does Venky play chess? How good is he? And you think he's gonna go easy on you if you ever play a round of chess against him. But Venky, I have to ask you, do you play chess at all?

Yes, I do. I, I play chess, um, not professionally. I also depend on which team wins for me. But yeah, always been intrigued by the, by the game. And, uh, knowing of chess has been a part of every Indian household. I'm no different. But yeah, really excited to be here.

Well, it's a very, very rare combination that you'll find an IPL cricketer Who is also pursuing his PhD in finance. So yeah, that's Meghatesh Arya for you, ladies and gentlemen. Let's hear it for him because he's here this evening as a special guest joining us, and it's a very rare occasion when chess and cricket collides like this, and it's happening at the RCB Bar and Cafe. I have to ask you, congratulations, you are IPL champion, of course. And now in hindsight, I'm sure you've had such a roller coaster of a season where you were not part of the playing eleven in the beginning. Come to the final, you're opening with Virat Kohli, and you made such an impact in the tournament altogether. What was IPL 2026 like for you, Vicky?

Well, it was really special. The victory was—I felt the magnitude of the victory was something I understood, not just on social media but wherever I went because I won the IPL before. But this time I felt like there were a lot of more people celebrating with me, which goes to show the crazy fan following that that RCB is blessed with. People have never let go of their fandom towards RCB. It's tough to hold on to such a fan base for a long, long time, especially when RCB has been searching for victories. But when it finally happened, it was actually special. I would have loved to be a part of RCB last year knowing when it happened for the first time, but to Win it again was really special.

We have with us one of the hottest names in world chess who's going to be joining us on stage. World Cup champion, one amongst the world top five. Let's hear it from the fires American Gambits team. Give it up for none other than Javokir Sindarov. Welcome, welcome, Javokir. Come on up, and let's have a microphone for Zawahir as well. Make yourself comfortable. Is the microphone on? Yeah, we'll figure that out. Welcome. Thank you so much.

Nice to see you.

We're not going to talk about today in particular. However, it's a great start to the season, and chess is ideally an individual game, but you're here as part of your team, the Fire's American Gambits. What's this year of the Global Chess League like? How are you enjoying our Bengaluru city? How are you enjoying Bangalore?

Uh, Yeah, actually, firstly, I'm surprised that Bangalore is not hotter than Uzbekistan. The weather is still fantastic and we also went some place and actually also enjoying the tournament. We have an extremely good team in my opinion. All the boards very strong and hopefully this year we will get the trophy in global chess to Bangalore team. And yeah, like, generally enjoying everything and, uh, we'll try our best in the series. So what to do?

I mean, uh, it's very fun. Well, great to have you here. I think the wager is already on as to who is going to survive if Venkatesh Aryan is given a chessboard and Joe Kainer is given a cricket bat. Who do you think is going to survive longer? What do you think, guys?

Yeah, I don't know. It's a very tough question. In general, I would hate to play like, like, I mean, let's say, I don't know how long you play one cricket, uh, like, because you know, not only one day, uh, how long you play, like 3-4 hours, right? One match.

Yeah, a T20 match will go on. We do have the Test match as well. Venky, would you like to educate?

Yeah, we do, we do play for like 6-7 hours a day.

Yeah, so I, I would say I have more chances to survive to play 6-7 hours cricket than you will, let's say, to play some chess games. Like in one game, I would say 8 hours sitting and playing in one game. So it will be 1,000 to play, uh, 6-7 hours like cricket, but I think like both will be there. So I mean, I'm a chess player, Yeah, Nihan truly is an RCB fan.

Where are you?

I'm just right now sitting like my 30 minutes to talk about the— like, I know how they are playing, but the rules, everything, I didn't have zero information, uh, and I start talking and like, I'm happy that Bangalore team, one of the best right now in India, so I'm even a huge fan of this team.

Yes, Nihal, go ahead. Just put you on the spot right now. 20 runs to score from the last over, and what advice would you have for Venky? You don't think he needs any advice. I think that's well taken, Venky. Thank you, thank you so very much, Nihal. Big round of applause for Nihal. Our very own Nihal Sarin is here as well. You can pass the microphone to Venky. Thank you for gracing the stage, Venky. If, say, Jadav Kiran was a cricketer, would you say it would be better for him to be a batter or bowler or captain?

I think he's leading the team here as well, right? To lead is not a— not an easy job. Uh, you have to take care of yourself and you also have to take care of your entire team. So you need to have a very strong character to be a leader. And from what I've heard and from what I've seen, I feel he's a great leader, a great captain. So I'd love for you to be a captain of a cricket team. Thank you.

There you go, a big round of applause, ladies and gentlemen. A big hand for them. Before we wrap up this conversation, this is a quickfire where you have to just say whatever comes on top of your mind, and probably we can alternate and take the microphone from one to the other. All right, Venky, we'll start with you. Attack or defend?

Attack.

Attack all the time. Okay, all right. Talent or preparation? I would say more work, preparation. Preparation. You would bounce for preparation. All right. Nihal, would it be instinct or calculation? For me, I would say instinct. It would be instinct and not calculation. All right. Venky, would you prefer an aggressive opponent or an unpredictable opponent?

As athletes, we thrive for challenges, right? So I would love to have an unpredictable opponent. An unpredictable opponent.

Okay, would you prefer winning ugly or losing beautifully?

One time ago, I was saying losing beautiful, but right now, I mean ugly.

Yeah, just everyone just loves winning, and I think that's why. You're here as representing the best in the world of chess. All right, home ground or absolute silence whatsoever, right? Yeah, so yeah, I'll be more here from Venky on this. Home ground or silence?

To be honest, I like silence.

He gets in the zone. It puts him in the zone. All right, one final one. One brilliant move or an overall perfect game? An overall perfect game. Right, well. I have one final question for you, and it is about what is it about the game of chess, or what is it about the game of cricket that still makes you feel like a kid who fell in love with the game? I mean, he's only 20.

Yeah, so, uh, you know, I will say, like, very hard question really. Uh, you know, I feel myself like an old guy who didn't feel anything like that. I mean, I played a lot of chess, so, but hopefully anytime when I play Some some very bad lines. I feel myself like a kid who plays chess, who doesn't know chess, but still being this top guy.

So you can't help but be grateful for it and be happy about it every day.

Well, we thank you for being here for Chess and Chill. By the way, Venkatesh happened to be in Bangalore. He's playing the Timapaya tournament, and he was kind enough to grace this. And say hi to all our grandmasters who are busy with the Global Chess League, which is on its day 2. So we've got 8 more days of massive chess action coming up. So you have the best wishes from all of us, the entire RCB. The founder actually and CEO of Firez, can we have Tejas Khode come on up along with the owner of American Gambit, Sudhachudra, to join us? To present Venkatesh Iyer with an American Gambits jersey. We are going to do a jersey exchange right here on stage.

You were saying something?

Yeah, I said like this world, a lot of people doesn't know. Like, I mean, if you are not used to play chess a lot, even, even I don't know.

It means you're really well. Hello, like, pizza really good. Venky, did you prepare?

Yeah, yeah, you did. Wish I prepared this much for the game.

All right, how's the game going, guys? Let me tell you, Venky is quite proud about the fact that he survived more than 5 minutes.

They're ganging up on me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's call for a draw.

Yeah, you guys get it? Yeah, right. Love a draw.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, it's a draw. Some space so that our photographers can have Sarah Kadam. We also have Mark, and we have— do we have our grandmaster, the coach, Srinath Narayanan, in the frame as well, along with Venkatesan Iyer?