Anish Giri may be a Dutch Grandmaster, but his roots lie in Nepal – his father, Sanjay Giri, hails from the Land of the Himalayas. After witnessing the devastation caused by the flash flood that devastated areas along the Nepal-Tibet border, Giri turned to chess to bring some relief to those affected.On September 1, the 32-year-old hosted a two-hour, 36-minute charity stream on his YouTube channel to raise funds for the official Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund. He live-streamed his Titled Tuesday games, a weekly online chess event on Chess.com, using the platform to mobilise support for Nepal. Giri also made a personal donation and shared posts on his social media handles, urging his followers to contribute and help raise more funds.Giri also has a Russian mother, Olga, and Indian roots through his paternal grandmother.He was a second to Viswanathan Anand during his World Championship match against Veselin Topalov in Sofia, Bulgaria, and has worked closely with GMs Adhiban Baskaran and Vidit Gujrathi, both of whom were part of Giri’s team for his 2016 Candidates campaign.Giri was born in St. Petersburg and spent the first seven years of his life there, before moving to Sapporo, Japan, with his family in 2002. He later moved to the Netherlands in 2008 and has represented the country in chess ever since. His father, Sanjay Giri, is a research engineer working at a Dutch organisation in Delft.Despite having visited Nepal only twice, Giri feels a deep connection to the country through his father. “I’ve been there twice, of course, but I have a very close connection to Nepal. It’s my father’s home country. My grandparents are from there. Throughout my entire life, my father’s friends have been coming over, and we’ve been going there as well,” he told The Indian Express.“I know all the Nepali festivities. I haven’t lived there as long as I have in Russia or the Netherlands, but still, when one of your parents is from a place, it has a big impact on you. So I’m very close to Nepal,” said Giri, who is currently in India playing for Alpine APL Pipers at the 2026 Global Chess League.Story continues below this adHis charity stream announcement gained traction, with Indian GMs Vidit and R Vaishali spreading the word. Giri initially wanted to do something more organised on a larger scale, but after his father suggested that immediate help was more important, he turned to his chess stream.“My father suggested I do this small gesture. I was thinking about doing something more organised and bigger, but with the schedule, I had to go to the league just a couple of days later. He told me it’s better to do something quick because there is immediate help needed at this moment. So I did it through the small stream. It helped, even a little bit. That’s good. But again, as the son of a Nepali father, I have a very close connection to Nepal,” he revealed.This isn’t the first time Giri has helped Nepal. In 2015, when a deadly earthquake claimed over 9,000 lives in Nepal, he joined hands with Chess.com and organised an online fundraising simul to raise funds for the UNICEF Relief Fund.Giri enjoys coming to India, he says. With an explosion of elite tournaments in the country, it ensures he takes a flight to India now and then. The Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz in Kolkata was the first tournament he played here. “There have been surprisingly few tournaments of high level in India previously, but since 2019, at some point it exploded. There has been the Olympiad hosted here, the Chennai Grandmasters is a new tournament, and the Global Chess League is hosted here. Always happy to play here,” he said.Story continues below this adGiri is currently World No. 11 and has been the top-ranked Dutch player for years. A three-time Candidates participant, Giri recorded his best result this year in Cyprus, finishing second behind Uzbek Javokhir Sindarov with 8.5/14. His biggest titles include the 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss and the 2023 Tata Steel Masters, his home tournament in Wijk aan Zee. The five-time Dutch champion has represented his country at seven Chess Olympiads, with the 2026 edition in Samarkand set to be his eighth.Giri has been giving back to the chess community for a long time. In 2022, he took part in a one-on-one deathmatch against Vidit Gujrathi, organised by ChessBase India to help promote the sport, which was gaining traction in the country at the time.Ahead of the Mahabalipuram Chess Olympiad, Giri travelled to Mumbai for the event and won Rs 5 lakh after defeating his good friend Vidit. He donated Rs 2 lakh from his winnings to HelpChess, a charitable initiative by ChessBase India that provides financial support to talented young chess players across the country.The funds were used to support young Indian players Ilamparthi and Jubin Jimmy. Ilamparthi went on to become India’s 90th Grandmaster, while Jimmy holds an IM title.