Good Sports: CHESS PRODIGY CHALLENGES WORLD CHAMP
Indian chess prodigy Nihal Sarin, who became a Grandmaster two years ago at age 14, recently challenged world chess champion Magnus Carlsen to a series of online chess shootouts. Carlsen beat the youngster 19-13 in the one-minute bullet games, but lost to him in a three-minute blitz game.
Bullet and blitz chess are growing in popularity, drawing more participants to online chess during the coronavirus pandemic. Nihal, who is ranked No. 3 in bullet chess after playing more than 15,000 games, hopes online chess gets more recognition from the chess governing body, FIDE.
“Online is primarily how I learned almost everything about chess,” Nihal told Indian Express. “I get to test and learn the concepts first-hand. When you are about to make a move in a real game, you see things in those moments that will never occur to you while you are thinking or training for hours.”
Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
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