SINGAPORE: Beating a grandmaster would probably be considered the pinnacle of sporting accomplishments for most indian chess players.
At the Burgdorfer Stadthaus Open in Switzerland on Sunday, February 18, eight-year-old Ashwath Kaushik did just that, defeating Polish grandmaster Jacek Stopa in the process.
Stopa, a Singaporean player, is 37 years old, almost five times older than Ashwath, but he showed no signs of fear as he defeated a grandmaster in classical chess, becoming the youngest player to do so.
The greatest title a chess player can have is grandmaster. Only a few weeks prior, at the Belgrade Open, Serbia’s Leonid Ivanovic—many months older than Ashwath—overcame Bulgarian grandmaster Milko Popchev, sixty years old, to set the previous record.
Ashwath, who is now rated 37338 in the world by the international chess body FIDE, said on Chess.com that his victory over Stopa “felt really exciting and amazing.”
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