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Journalism of Courage
In a remarkable display of skill and strategy, eight-year-old Indian-origin player Ashwath Kaushik has set a world record by becoming the youngest person in history to defeat a grandmaster in classical chess, reports Chess.com. Aged eight years, six months and 11 days, Kaushik defeated 37-year-old Polish Grandmaster Jacek Stopa at the 22nd Burgdorfer Stadthaus-Open in Switzerland, near the capital city of Bern this Sunday.
This was Kaushik’s fourth consecutive win at the tournament, where he managed to eclipse the record set by Leonid Ivanovic from Serbia just days earlier. Ivanovic had secured a victory over Bulgarian competitor Milko Popchev at the age of eight years, 11 months, and seven days.
The feat places Kaushik on a prestigious list of young players to defeat grandmasters in classical chess—a list that includes Indian prodigies like R Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh D, who were just over 10 years old at the time of their victories. Kaushik’s current standard FIDE rating is 1892, while Stopa’s is 2351.
Despite being seeded 59th out of 127 participants at the start of the Burgdorfer Stadthaus-Open, Kaushik impressively finished in 12th place. He lost his final game to English International Master Harry Grieve. The tournament was finally won by Russian GM Vitaly Kunin.
The chess community has rallied around Kaushik’s feat, with Dutch GM Anish Giri lauding the young champion’s success on X. “8 is the new 12,” remarked Giri, suggesting a new benchmark has been set in the world of chess.
The nature versus nurture debate is common in chess, but there is no secret sauce to becoming a prodigy. As with most logic games, it helps if a child is imaginative and has (or can develop) an aptitude for pattern recognition, memorisation and visual-spatial thinking. This is usually supported by rigorous training at home and mentorship by local federation chapters. Neuroplasticity, or the brain’s ability to form new connections and ‘rewire’ itself, peaks during childhood, making it the best time for any practice-based learning to take root. Musical or multilingual prodigies are born the same way, as are sudoku champs.
Chess prodigies today also have nearly unlimited online access to every niche format, attack/defense style and historical game they would like to practice, compared to the past when one would have to memorise tactics from books. As is the case with Kaushik, they can also teach themselves. Kaushik’s father tells Chess.com that the youngster learned the rules of chess at age four by playing on ChessKid, a website with video lessons and puzzles where you can play against other children. Neither he nor his wife play chess.
Mikhail Tal, the Soviet-Latvian player known for his daring attacks, is Kaushik’s idol. Tal himself was a child prodigy, and Kaushik too has grown “tactically very sharp”, reveals GM Kevin Goh Wei Ming, CEO of the Singapore Chess Federation. He added that coaches are now spending time honing Kaushik’s strategical understanding. The youngster is part of Singapore’s Under-14 squad.
In May 2022, at just six years old, Kaushik had clinched the gold medal in the under-8 category of the World Cadets and Youth Championships 2022 for Rapid and Blitz held in Rhodes, Greece. Like Tal, he used creative attacks on the board, and hopes to use this fearlessness to one day become world champion.
