At age 3 years, 7 months and 20 days, Sarwagya Singh Kushwaha has become the youngest chess player to be rated by FIDE, the sport’s international governing body. The Madhya Pradesh boy began playing chess when he was two-and-a-half years old and now practices for up to five hours a day, including an hour at a chess training center. Sarwagya earned a rating of 1,572 in rapid chess by beating several rated players in chess tournaments, including three players aged 20 to 29.
“We pushed him into chess last year because we noticed his mind was a sponge and he would pick up things very quickly. In a week of being taught chess he could name all the pieces accurately,” his father Siddharth told The Indian Express. “He loves the sport a lot. If you wake him up in the middle of the night and ask him to play, he will for hours without a break. But what separates him from other kids his age is his patience to sit on the board and not get restless.”
Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge. [Comments? Contributions? Please email us at melvin@melvindurai.com. We welcome jokes, quotes, online clips, and more.]