Indian teen chess grandmaster beats Magnus Carlsen in online rapid tournament

This player is obviously a really good chess player, but I wouldn't get too focused on his exact age - families in India and Pakistan often register their children's age as younger than their true age, for girls because they think it will give them a few more years to find a good "match" for marriage once they are adults, and also sometimes for boys if they are small for their true age, to prevent bullying and help them do better academically. Source: personal family members who have done this - you ask the kids what their date of birth is, they ask "the real one or the paper one"?

Other sources: https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/age-fraud-i...

https://thewire.in/sport/why-age-fraud-in-indian-sports-is-s...

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-the-ho...

5 comments

aldebran4 lata temu

There's no reason to suspect that's what Rameshbabu's parents have done. There's no reason to bring this up. With a billion+ people everything is technically possible. Painting everything with the same brush isn't helping anything.

ghufran_syed4 lata temu

Do I “suspect” them? Of course not, I don’t even know them. But are you disagreeing with the idea that the probability of an inaccurate age is non-trivial in these sorts of situations? Same as when discussing world records of “world’s oldest person” - data inaccuracy should always be a consideration if you care about understanding reality. But if you’re just looking for warm fuzzy feels, then I can see why you might take offense at someone interrupting that with non-fuzzy facts.

cocoland24 lata temu

Yeah , tournaments have been cancelled https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/pakistan-under-13-and-und...

sg474 lata temu

This is bs. A cursory YouTube search shows him being interviewed at 9 and he doesn't look older than 9 possibly even younger. Lance Armstrong doped, does that mean that all American athletes dope?

badblade4 lata temu

You are just jealous. Accept the feat and move on.