9-year-old Aarit Kapil becomes youngest Indian to beat a chess Grandmaster   

Nine-year-old Delhi boy Aarit Kapil has become the youngest Indian to beat a chess Grandmaster (GM) as he emerged victorious against Raset Ziatdinov of United States in the ninth and penultimate round of the KIIT International open tournament.

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He is the youngest Indian and third in the world to beat a GM under the classical time control. The Indian-origin Singapore boy Ashwath Kaushik won against Jacek Stupa of Poland, was just 8 years and six months old, earlier this year. He is also the youngest player in the world to beat a GM.

If the game was any indication, Ziatdinov, 66, is certainly past his prime. As is usually the case when an experienced GM plays against a youngster, Ziatdinov did many things right positionally to get the upper hand thanks to his better pawn structure.

To Aarit’s credit, he fought on after standing slightly worse with his white pieces. It was a long-drawn endgame wherein Ziatdinov made the final mistake and lost a knight on Sunday. The resulting position just needed decent calculation and the young lad from Delhi had no troubles whatsoever in converting his advantage in to a well-deserved win. The game lasted 63 moves.

While the victory places Aarit among the elite young talents, it remains to be seen how he performs in upcoming tournaments. The next challenge awaits him in form of under-13 national championship to be held at Durgapur later this month, followed by his own age group event, the under-9 nationals in Pune.

Meanwhile, Grandmaster Boris Savchenko of Russia won the KIIT tournament, settling for a draw with India’s Sayantan Das in the final round. Savchenko scored 8.5 points out of a possible 10.

Following Aarit’s triumph, the top three youngest players to beat a Grandmaster now include:

1. Ashwath Kaushik (Singapore) – 8 years 2 months
2. Leonid Ivanovic (Serbia) - 8 years 11 months
3. Aarit Kapil – 9 years 2 months.