Master Class

It doesn8217;t come easy, however, and it doesn8217;t come cheap. Being a prodigy means paying a heavy price.

Ask Negi. At 12, he should be watching the latest Shah Rukh starrer or watching England and Australia slug it out on the cricket pitch. Instead he spends most of the day in his room; it8217;s his world, it contains his chessboard and his laptop.

There, surrounded by walls that bear his crayon artistry 8212; that phase seems like a very long time ago 8212; he sits six hours a day, six days a week, with his Kazakh coach Yevgeni Vladimirov. And trains and trains, and plots and plans.

For the past three years, his schedule has been thus: The day begins at eight in the morning. An hour-long jog is followed by a light breakfast. Then three hours of training with Vladimirov 8212; who once worked with Garry Kasparov 8212; followed by an hour8217;s lunch break and three more hours at the board.

And that8217;s a light schedule; some of his seniors, including Koneru Humpy and P. Harikrishnan, have had more gruelling training days.

Parimarjan does not remember the last film he saw. His house does not have a TV. There is no time for social niceties as friends and parties. Not even school.

No, Parimarjan doesn8217;t go to school. His school provides him with notes and he goes there only to write exams. Yet he does well in his studies 8212; he stood first in his class last year.

It8217;s important for a chess player to shut out the world; chess is a parallel world in itself. But it8217;s a razor8217;s edge the prodigy walks on; social disasters are inevitable if somebody keeps thinking chess all day and all night. 8216;8216;If somebody keeps concentrating on chess alone, it is very dangerous. Only very strong people can afford it8217;8217;, says Vladimirov.

So Parimarjan does relax, by reading Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. But even his reading habits betray his difference: his favourite book is Kasparov8217;s My Great Predecessors, his current reading is Salman Rushdie.

Doesn8217;t he miss being 8216;8216;normal8217;8217;? It8217;s a fair trade-off, he says. 8216;8216;I know I don8217;t go to school like other kids, I don8217;t get to play and have fun with friends; but I enjoy chess enough to not mind missing all this for my training8217;8217;, he says. 8216;8216;And anyway I don8217;t enjoy movies or parties.8217;8217;

Perhaps Negi8217;s loner-like behaviour isn8217;t normal even among prodigies. Vishwanathan Anand remembers having many friends, playing other games. 8216;8216;I went for chess classes on weekends, only rarely during the week. I enjoyed attending school and college, and travel and tournaments.8217;8217;

CHESS is a brutal game. It essentially involves killing one8217;s opponent in the mind. It requires a lot of self-belief and tenacity 8212; and a vicious mindset not usually found in pre-teens.

To paraphrase Edison, chess is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent tactics. The tactics, of course, come through perspiration, which in chess terms is endless brain jogging.

Ask any coach what8217;s common to chess prodigies and they8217;ll say that, apart from extraordinary intelligence, it8217;s a capacity for independent thought, intense focus, and willingness to make sacrifices.

But mainly tactics, six hours a day, every day. Delhi coach KC Joshi, who has earlier worked with Negi, says if he is focussing on endgames, he gives the child exercises from classic games that involve spotting the weakness in the opponent8217;s formation and checkmating in a desired number of moves.

If they are focussing on openings, hours go into identifying all the variations in different openings. A lot of theory is involved so that, right from the start, they can tell a Queen8217;s gambit from a Catalan opening and all the permutations and combinations.

The training changes when tournaments approach. Opponents8217; games are studied, their weaknesses tracked, their strengths negated.

8216;8216;We stop training, per se, before tournaments and look at the psychological aspects8217;8217;, says Vladimirov. 8216;8216;Dealing with very young children requires a certain psychological understanding. They cannot concentrate for too long, so I do not give them too many general things.8217;8217;

8216;8216;We start looking at the abilities to focus for long hours before the tournaments8217;8217;, adds Joshi. 8216;8216;I try to prepare them for the gamesmanship they are likely to encounter during matches.8217;8217;

Over the days and months master and pupil develop a bond that goes beyond the boards. Coach and kid share a passion and are the same age when it comes to their zeal for the game. 8216;8216;When I used to accompany Tania Delhi girl Tania Sachdev to tournaments, I could see what was going on in her mind by looking at her facial reaction8217;8217;, says Joshi, 8216;8216;That8217;s the kind of understanding we develop when we spend such long hours together every day.8217;8217;

OF COURSE, the child does not struggle alone: the parents make as many, if not more, sacrifices. Parimarjan8217;s parents both work 8212; his father is an Air Traffic Controller with the Airports Authority of India, his mother has a job with LIC.

Life is tough for two working parents raising a prodigy. One of them has to arrange leave every month to escort the son to tournaments. There are the expenses 8212; the Negis pay 200 per day for Parimarjan8217;s coaching 8212; though there is increasing sponsorship these days.

8216;8216;We have cut down on our needs and wasteful expenditure because foreign tours are the only means to get rating points. There are no quality tournaments in India8217;8217;, says JB Singh Negi, Parimarjan8217;s father.

Add to all this the element of risk associated with prodigies. What if Parimarjan gets fed up with doing the same thing every day, loses interest in exploring possibilities on a chess board and decides not to play any more?

Chess players are the most systematic thinkers but they too are prone to frustration and boredom. And when you become a GM in your teens, the rest of your life suddenly plateaus out. Even if you can survive the pressure of staying on top, there8217;s really nothing more to achieve; the only way is down. What if, in this scenario, he decides to quit? The father says he will respect the son8217;s decision, notwithstanding the fact that half a life8217;s work 8212; and money 8212; has effectively been lost.

That8217;s a lot of guilt to lay on a child.

The interlinking of fortunes is only too obvious 8212; Vladimirov finds the parental involvement in India too high for his liking 8212; and the child can see it.

8216;8216;I have almost no pressure from my parents but I don8217;t want to let them down8217;8217;, says Parimarjan.

SO WHAT does chess hold in store for Parimarjan Negi? 8216;8216;I have a long way to go8217;8217;, he says. 8216;8216;I haven8217;t even started thinking about what I have achieved. I8217;m enjoying my chess, I haven8217;t set any specific goals. Except one: I want to become a GM soon enough, though I haven8217;t set any specific date for it. I8217;d like to become a stronger player, and am only thinking about my next assignment right now 8212; the World U-12 championship in France.8217;8217;

Another normal day in the life of a 12-year-old prodigy.