Sasikiran (nickname: Sasi; surname: Krishnan) comes from the southern Indian metropolis of Chennai, which was officially called Madras until 1996, but with the name change, it reconnected with its ethnic and cultural roots as a region predominantly inhabited by Tamils. He is married and has one daughter.

In the wake of the chess boom triggered by Anand's breathtaking career, which earned him the nickname ‘Tiger of Madras’, Sasikiran learned to play chess from his father in 1991 at the age of 10. At that time, Madras was the venue for the FIDE World Championship quarter-final between ‘Vishy’ Anand and Russia's Alexey Dreev, which ended 4.5:1.5 to the delight of the locals. At that time, even Sasikiran's father probably never dreamed that his son would one day not only become a grandmaster, but also Anand's second in the FIDE World Championship in 2013 and 2014. It would be inappropriate to list all of Sasikiran's achievements here, but it is worth mentioning that he became FIDE GM in 2000 and was the second Indian after Anand to break the 2700 Elo barrier in 2007. Since 2005, he has played league matches for various European chess clubs.

He himself says, “my best performance in OTB is the bronze medal for India ( with an Individual silver medal for myself on Board 3) at the Tromso Olympiad 2014. It is the first medal for India in OTB Chess Olympiad history.
I am also proud to say that India are the current Olympic gold medal champions in both the open and Women section after Budapest 2024.”

In 2014, given the increasing importance of high-quality engine analysis for opening preparation, Sasikiran turns to correspondence chess and accepts an invitation to participate in the Palciauskas Invitational Section A (category 13). Much to the delight of the other 14 participants, as it is quite rare for them to have the opportunity to play a correspondence chess game against an o-t-b GM. The correspondence chess newcomer is listed in the table with his FIDE rating of 2670, which further enhances the prestige of the tournament. Sasikiran is also delighted when he gets to try out a variation against the Czech correspondence chess GM Straka's Semi-Slav Defence, which had played a role in his World Championship preparation. It turns out to be an exciting, highly tactical masterpiece of a game, which he still fondly remembers today. On the other hand, he has to chalk up the fact that his white game against Tim Murray in the same variation slips away from him due to inaccurate play and tips over immediately after a mistake as a tribute to the time-consuming chess working day. 17 hours at a stretch are not uncommon. 

Sasi's main motivation for the coming years remains trying out and testing opening ideas for play on the board. The ups and downs of his ICCF rating around 2550 are secondary as long as it remains within a range that allows him to participate in high-class correspondence chess tournaments. In 2020, he fulfilled hir first ICCF GM norm at the Germany Grandmasters 06 -B with 8.5 out of 15, being the only one not to benefit from the time exceedings of the last-placed player, but instead defeating the Italian Mauro Pedrolo with White in a Najdorf Sicilian.

ChessBase interviewed Sasikiran in Hamburg in 2024 on the occasion of the recording of his DVD entitled ‘The Art of Sacrificing’ and recorded a video about it.