Some stories are too good to be marketing copy. This is one of them, and every word of it is true.

In May 2022, the very first Dynamo Chess Tournament was held. Among the entrants was GM Mitrabha Guha, India’s 72nd Grandmaster — a title that usually means years of specialized preparation. Except on this particular day, Guha hadn’t prepared at all. He arrived at the tournament having just finished sitting three college examinations that same morning, and he had never seen Dynamo Chess before in his life.

He won every single game.

In the final, he faced GM Dibyendu Barua — the very Grandmaster who had spent three years shaping the game’s rules. Guha won that match too, becoming the first-ever Dynamo Chess Champion. True to his character, Barua donated his runner-up prize money to the third-place finisher.

“In Dynamo Chess, I cannot rely on anything I have studied before. Every move is a new problem. That is exactly what makes it so fascinating — even for a Grandmaster.”

GM Mitrabha Guha

Why does this story matter so much to Dynamo Chess as a concept? Because it’s living proof of the game’s entire philosophy. Classical chess, at the highest level, rewards whoever has memorized the most opening theory — sometimes 20 or 30 moves deep, studied for years. Dynamo Chess has no such theory to memorize. Every game starts from zero. On that May morning in 2022, a tired college student with zero preparation beat a field of prepared players simply by thinking more clearly than anyone else at the board.

Since then, Dynamo Chess has gone on to reach the Chess Olympiad 2022, the 51st National Women’s Chess Championship 2025 in Durgapur, and the Chess for Youth Championship at Kolkata’s Town Hall — but this first tournament, and Guha’s improbable run through it, remains the story that best explains why the game exists at all.