S. L. Narayanan is an Indian chess grandmaster who was born on January 10, 1998, in Kerala. He won the Asian Junior Chess Championship in 2015, after which he achieved the norm for the International Master title. In the same year, he also won the bronze medal in the World Junior Chess Championship. Narayanan was finally awarded the grandmaster title by FIDE in March 2016. He then went on to win the Kolkata International Grandmasters Open Chess Tournament in 2018.
In addition to his chess playing career, Narayanan has also worked as a second to a few top Indian grandmasters, including Surya Shekhar Ganguly and P. Harikrishna. His career includes notable games against eminent players like Ruslan Ponomariov and Le Quang Liêm. In the 2021 FIDE World Cup, he had a strong performance, defeating several higher-rated players and reaching the fourth round, which was the best result achieved by an Indian player in that competition.