World’s youngest chess champion Anish Sarkar enters the FIDE rating at 3 years!

New Delhi: Coming from the state of West Bengal, child prodigy Anish Sarkar has overshadowed Tejas Tiwari to register an impressive Elo rating of 1555 on Friday. Moreover, at just three years, eight months, and 19 days old, he has claimed the title of the youngest FIDE-rated chess player.

Anish debuted at the 1st All Bengal Rapid Rating Open 2024, where he scored an impressive 5 points from 11 games. Just weeks later, Anish had the incredible opportunity to play against Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi, India’s top player and world-ranked No. 4, during a rapid rating tournament.

Anish Sarkar becomes the youngest rated player ever at the age of 3 years 8 months and 19 days

Born on 26th January 2021, Anish scored 5.5/8 at West Bengal State Under-9 Open in October, finishing 24th overall. He scored 2/3 against rated players at this event. Incidentally, it… pic.twitter.com/S9UcxcKubL

— ChessBase India (@ChessbaseIndia) November 1, 2024

According to FIDE rules, a chess player should be a part of at least 5 games against a rated player within a span of 26 players. Moreover, the player must score a minimum of 1/2 point to be registered in the FIDE rating. However, Bengal’s child prodigy Anish Sarkar went a notch above and managed to score 2/3 against three rated players at the West Bengal State Under-9 Open.

Overall he scored 5.5/8 and finished 24th in what was his first Classical rating tournament, as per ChessBase India. In the West Bengal State Under-13 Open, Anish Sarkar failed to score a point against two rated players but fulfilled the criteria to become a FIDE-rated player.

Erigasi slips out of the 2800!

Meanwhile, India’s Arjun Erigaisi is ranked fourth in the world with a rating of 2799, while D Gukesh is fifth (2783).

Arjun Erigaisi recently became only the second Indian chess player after Viswanathan Anand and the 16th player in the world to cross the 2800 mark in live rating. However, the southpaw has now slipped to 2799 by the end of October, which means his feat would not feature in the official list.