November 5, 2024

3-Year-Old Anish Prefers GothamChess To Peppa Pig, Earns 1555 FIDE Rating

Anish Sarkar at age 3 is the youngest player to have a FIDE rating. Photo: Shahid Ahmed/ChessBase India.

Forget Peppa Pig and Baby Shark. Three-year-old Anish Sarkar has different idols: chess stars IM Levy Rozman and GM Magnus Carlsen. The prodigy has become the world’s youngest-rated player by earning his first FIDE rating, which is 1555.

At an age when most toddlers turn to nursery rhymes and Lego, this young boy from Kolkata, India, is already playing in tournaments, solving chess puzzles, and watching chess videos on YouTube.

The story of the pint-sized chess prodigy, born after the pandemic began in January 2021, has gone viral thanks to ChessBase India which documented his extraordinary journey. In a recent story, they published several videos of Anish demonstrating advanced concepts such as the smothered mate and the classic double-rook sacrifice checkmate.

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