On February 18th, Ashwath Kaushik, an eight year old Indian boy, became the youngest player to beat a chess grandmaster at a tournament in Switzerland. According to Ben Church, a writer for CNN explained, “The youngster, who lives in Singapore, achieved the feat after beating Poland’s Jacek Stopa, 37, in round four of the Burgdorfer Stadthaus Open in Switzerland.” (Feb 20th) The boy spent the majority of his time racing up the ranks of Chess.com, quickly becoming the World Under-8 Rapid champion in 2022 (Church, CNN, Feb. 20th)

Of course people were amazed at this accomplishment. Ashwath Kaushik has the full support of his family. According to the TOI Sports Desk, writing for the Times of India, they say, “ Singaporean Grandmaster and CEO of the Singapore Chess Federation, Kevin Goh says on “X” (formally known as twitter), “Dad is super supportive, boy is dedicated, school allows flexibility and of course he has natural talent.”” (Feb 20th) Along with that, the boy’s father, Sriram Kaushik, said in a post on “X” that seeing his son win against the grandmaster was one of the best moments of his life. (TOI Sports Dest, Times of India, Feb 20th)

Not that long ago, the record was recently broken this past January by another young prodigy, Leonid Ivanovic, who was the first player under the age of nine to beat a grandmaster in a classical game. (Church, CNN, Feb. 20th) But the child stood no match to Kaushik, who is five months younger. With the rapid increase of child chess prodigies, it is to wonder how far Ashwath Kaushik will grow with this accomplishment.