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| Krittika and Kongona Sinha at The Telegraph Schools’ Chess. (Arnab Mondal) |
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They can barely hold a pencil properly but they are adept at making the right moves with the black and white pieces, standing on tiptoe or kneeling on a chair to reach the chessboard, and quick to point out a wrong one.
More than 50 of the 434 participants in the 24th edition of The Telegraph Schools’ Chess championship were less than eight years old and around 20 less than six.
Twins Krittika and Kongona Sinha were busy playing mock shehnai at the inauguration but when it was time for their games, the KG students at Sushila Birla Girls’ High School were no less than any professional. “The knight plays two-and-a-half moves, he has just moved it two houses,” pointed out a miffed Krittika to the arbiter when her older opponent made a wrong move.
Krittika, a diehard Doraemon fan, and her sister have been learning chess at Alekhine Chess Club for five months. “Kongona is the naughtier one but she sat through a game for more than three hours and finally won it,” said mother Dipanjana Sinha, a teacher.
Little Anubhav Nundy, however, proved less patient. The Class I student at La Martiniere for Boys was seen hugging his mother tight and crying when a game stretched too long. “I want to draw but sir is not letting me,” cried the boy as his mother tried her best to make him resume the game. When the six-year-old finally returned to the game, his four-and-a-half-year-old opponent was teary-eyed. “She saw him crying and got scared and so now she is crying too,” said Sneha Saha’s mother.
Avhipsha Das, a nursery student at Garden High School, and her sister Ashpriha Das, a student of Class I in the same school, turned up in cute, identical frocks with their mother — few would guess the three-and-a-half-year-old and her elder sibling by a year and a half were participants.
Six-year-old Ayush Bhattacharjee knelt on a chair so that he could be level with the chessboard. “I have been learning chess for the last three years and love it. Queen is my favourite as she can move anywhere on the board,” said the Transition student at South Point School who loves watching Chhota Bheem.
Ayush lost the game (he won five others) but impressed his rival. “Although I won the game, Ayush was playing better than his age and gave me good competition,” said Samik Das, a Class VI student at Shri Krishna Mission, Agartala.
Grandmaster Dibyendu Barua says there has been a spike in the number of children learning chess from a young age. “We generally have Under-8, 12, 14 age groups but last year there were so many kids below six that I had to introduce an under-6 group with around 90 contestants,” said Barua, whose chess academy has been organising Chess for Youth for the last seven years.
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