Three-year-old Anish Sarkar has to sit on a stack of three plastic chairs to reach the chessboard placed on the table at his training school — the Dhanuka Dhunseri Dibyendu Barua Chess Academy in Kolkata. To make a killing on the other half of the board, he has to be on all fours — hands on the table, legs on the chair.
Chess is used to teen prodigies but with Kolkata pre-schooler Anish becoming the youngest FIDE-ranked player in the world, organisers, in the coming days, may have to order a few “high baby chairs” for tiny tots at tournament venues.
Since the time Anish made the historic cut, the Barua academy has received unprecedented media attention. The child star is oblivious to the camerapersons circling him. His coach Dibyendu Barua, a highly-rated Indian Grandmaster, is amazed at Anish’s memory but requests not to hype his ward.
The mother, too, is guarded. She doesn’t want her name or photograph to be published but is ready to talk about her son’s chess initiation.
Anish Sarkar, the 3-year-old chess prodigy from Bengal, is the youngest rated player with a FIDE rating of 1555. (Express Photo by Partha Paul)
Last year, when Kolkata hosted its big annual chess event — the Tata Steel India Chess Tournament — the presence of teenage posterboy R Praggnanandhaa created a buzz. Among those excited was Anish’s maternal uncle, so much so that he got the child a chessboard for Durga Puja.
It didn’t prove to be an age-inappropriate gift for the three-year-old, who learnt the rules of the game from YouTube.
In the days to come, the mother would realise that her son was special. It happened while the family was on a train, returning home from Agra. The bored little boy walked across to an older child in the adjoining seat who was playing the game online.
“We were returning from Agra on a train. There was another child who was playing chess there, so he went up to that child. That child was older than him, but by the end of our train journey, Anish was winning,” recalls the mother.
In March this year, the family enrolled Anish at the Barua academy.
Anish Sarkar trains at the Dhanuka Dhunseri Dibyendu Barua Chess Academy. (Express Photo by Partha Paul)
Within months, Anish made his debut at the state Under-9 tournament. He secured a creditable 5.5 out of 8 points and finished 24th, defeating two rated opponents in the process.
Next came the Under-13 state event, where he had to face five rated players to get into the FIDE rankings. His solid play got him a ranking of 1555.
Asked how a three-year-old could be hooked to this cerebral indoor game and get advanced lessons on YouTube, Anish’s mother mentions a channel called Gotham Chess that has over 5.5 million subscribers and Levy Rozman as host.
Rozman’s motto is to make chess fun and for that, he has a WWE-style booming signature chant — “Sacrifice the Roooook”. He says this often on the show.
Anish Sarkar has also played against the India no.1 Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi. (Express Photo by Partha Paul)
Anish loved this chant and would keep asking his parents to let him hear it. “He used to say sacrifice the roooook’ over and over at home. This piqued his interest. He was pretty interested in watching chess games after that,” says his mother.
At the academy, Anish would impress Barua. “We gave him some problems to solve, which he did. After that, he said ‘I am going to give you a problem.’ I thought he’ll just arrange some pieces haphazardly on the board. But he gave me a proper problem,” says Barua.
When the coach asked him how he knew this, the answer was “YouTube” again. “He is special and God-gifted. Other than that, it is impossible for a child to memorise these things so well,” Barua says.
There is a sense of awe in chess circles about what Anish has managed to do at the age of three. For context, former world champion Magnus Carlsen was five when he pushed his first piece down a chessboard. His predecessor on the world champion’s throne, Viswanathan Anand, was six when he learnt how to play.
Anish Sarkar with his coach Dibyendu Barua. (Express Photo by Partha Paul)
Earlier this year, Grandmaster R B Ramesh, who has shaped the careers of stars like Praggnanandhaa and R Vaishali, told The Indian Express that the ideal age for a child to start learning chess was between four and six years. He started working with Pragg just before he was eight years of age.
GM Pravin Thipsay says that he thinks a child should take up chess after turning 6 years, but can’t hide his surprise over Anish’s achievement. “It just shows that the human brain has remarkable capacities. Let us hope that the chart goes in the right direction… rating can become a big problem because children want to maintain the rating. Many players have stopped playing chess for the fear of losing rating,” he says.
Barua is aware of these potential pitfalls. “I have told him and his parents that just don’t think about the rating. Just let him play freely. We talk to the children and also counsel their parents,” he says.
Anish Sarkar does his schooling from St James school (Express photo by Partha Paul)
Anish’s mother seconds that thought. “If he decides that he will not play, we can’t force him. It all depends on what he wants to do,” she says.
While the adults are busy in conversations, the young Magnus Carlsen fan is unfazed. He is on all fours, poised to make a killing on the board.
