Anish Sarkar
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YEAR-WISE DEVELOPMENTS
2025: Age 4, World’s Youngest Fide-Rated Player
Saibal Bose, March 9, 2025: The Times of India
Dibyendu Barua gingerly drags his white bishop diagonally and places it five squares away from the black king. It’s a check. His rival, four-yearold Anish Sarkar, sitting with legs folded on the chair in a way that adds a few inches to his height, promptly plonks his rook in between the two pieces, in the process opening up a direct passage for his bishop to the white king. A reverse check. Barua’s mouth opens a little in an expression of surprise, but the grandmaster has enough experience to wriggle out of the sticky situation.
“He almost got me there,” the veteran chuckles. This is not the first time that Anish has given the chess maestro a flutter. Barua has been coaching Anish at his Dhanuka Dhunseri Dibyendu Barua Chess Academy in south Kolkata, over 20km away from Kaikhali in the city’s northern suburbs where the prodigy resides with his parents. He reckons it won’t be long before he is forced to surrender to Anish. “If he continues to love chess the way he does now, he can achieve anything,” Barua says.
Has Anish ever beaten Barua? “No,” the preschooler shakes his head without looking up from the board.
Would he like to beat him one day? “Yes,” he nods, playing with the pieces.
When? This time he steals a naughty glance at his coach and continues to arrange the board. “Later,” the reply comes almost in a whisper.
Making Rapid Strides
Anish has been playing the game for just over a year, but has already done enough to become the youngest Fide-rated player in the world. The landmark happened in Oct last year, when he beat two rated players in the Bengal State U-9 meet. The pieces seem too big for his fingers as Anish keeps shuffling them deftly. In fact, the speed of the calculated moves defy his age. He was not three when he first fiddled with these pieces on the 64 squares. It was 2023. “We were wondering what sport we should put him into when my brother gave him a chess set as a Durga Puja gift,” Anish’s mother Reshma Chatterjee tells TOI. “It seemed a good thing as the pieces were big enough to dissuade him from putting them in his mouth. At the same time, I could keep him busy with the chess set while I finished household chores.”
Little did she know that the toddler would get so engrossed with chess that it would become difficult for them to keep him away from the board for too long. Born during the Covid pandemic, Anish turned four this Republic Day. Less than a month later, he became a champion for the first time, winning a U-8 tournament organised by the district chess association in Howrah.
Young And Restless
Anish spends around eight hours at the academy, at least four days a week. “That is also his home,” Reshma says. A kindergarten student of St James’, Anish comes to the academy straight from school. Reshma brings three sets of tiffin with her, for lunch, evening snacks and dinner. She spends the entire eight hours sitting at the academy’s reception area. “We finish his dinner here because it takes us around two hours to return home. By the time we are back, Anish is fast asleep,” she explains.
A schoolteacher father as the only earning member of the family means they try to cut corners and Reshma always commutes by public transport. “There are problems at times,” she says. “Like the other day, when a fellow passenger recog nised Anish on the bus and offered us a seat. But as soon as he mentioned that Anish is a national award winner, others started passing snide comments, like ‘even these people have to use the bus now’.”
Reshma now tries to shield her son from the unwanted glare. “He is so young, we don’t want any negativity around him.” That has made the family a little media shy.
Anish is as fidgety as any other four year old. Even though he can hold his concentration for a three-hour classical game, rarely will you find him sitting in one place. He either stands up, takes a walk, makes innocent gestures, drops a pencil or simply smiles at anyone that’s watching. A mischievous smile that is sure to win hearts. However, he is ready with his riposte whenever the opponent makes a move.
“Black won,” he says in a matter-of-fact way after losing to a player twice his age. Ask him how black won and he launches into a blitz of moves to show that white (himself) had no option but to surrender. “If he wins, he wants his favourite biryani and if he loses, he still wants his favourite biryani,” Reshma laughs.
Wowing The Biggies
Given his age, he sometimes may not grasp the enormity of the occasion. Like the his skills meeting with Magnus Carlsen, one of the greatest chess players ever, at the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Kolkata last Nov. Carlsen was quite impressed, but did Anish feel that way, too? Difficult to say. What did Carlsen tell him? Anish opens his eyes wide and says “Wow! So young and already 1500 rating points!” And what did Prime Minister Narendra Modi tell him during their meeting on Dec 26?
“Chess sikhte ho?” Even President Draupadi Murmu expressed her amazement when she met Anish. “I was overawed by the moment, but Anish was normal,” Reshma says. Grandmaster Anish Giri is his favourite player as they “share the same name”.
Fast Learner With A Strong Memory
Talking about Anish’s strengths, Barua says his sharp mind helps him catch things fast. And he remembers things well. “When his parents brought him to us, we refused to take him as he was only three years and two months old,” Barua says. “After they insisted that we try him out at least once, I decided to test him. I set up a few boards and he came up with solutions to almost all of them. And, then, to my surprise, he said that he will set up a board for me. To my amazement, he gave a perfect board with not one piece wrongly placed. He had seen it somewhere on YouTube. The surprising thing was that he remembered it exactly. That was when I decided to take him under my fold,” said Barua. He now holds special training sessions for Anish.
Anish, in fact, learned most of the game on YouTube. Although he got drawn to chess watching his father and uncle play, it was on the internet that he sharpened his skills. “He can spend hours watching chess on YouTube,” Reshma says. She, too, was a teacher before she quit to give time to her son. “We don’t know whether he will continue to love chess, but he does so now and my job is to support him to the best of my ability.”
