Aarit Kapil, 9-year-old New Delhi boy, shocks chess world no.1 Magnus Carlsen with draw, who is he?
&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Aarit Kapil, 9-year-old New Delhi boy, shocks chess world no.1 Magnus Carlsen with draw, who is he?")
Aarit Kapil, 9-year-old New Delhi boy, shocks chess legend Magnus Carlsen Photograph: (Others)
New Delhi boy Aarit, also a Candidate Master, took part in this online event from his hotel room in Batumi, Georgia, where he continues to compete in the FIDE World Cadets Cup under-10 category.
Chess seems to blossom in abundance in India. Weeks after Grandmaster D Gukesh beat the world number one, Magnus Carlsen, in the Norway Chess 2025 competition, another Indian, this time a nine-year-old prodigy named Aarit Kapil from New Delhi’s Mayur Vihar, almost came close to creating history before settling for a draw. Aarit, a fifth-grade student in Somerville School, who began playing chess just four years ago, maintained a winning position against Carlsen in an online blitz game during the Early Titled Tuesday competition before time constraints led to a majestic draw in the 49th move.
The Titled Tuesday competition is exclusively open to players with FIDE titles, featuring elite Grandmasters like Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, and former world champion Vladimir Kramnik.
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New Delhi boy Aarit, also a Candidate Master, took part in this online event from his hotel room in Batumi, Georgia, where he continues to compete in the FIDE World Cadets Cup under-10 category.
Meanwhile, drawing against the five-time world champion counts for something for the nine-year-old Aarit. This achievement adds to his already decorated cabinet, which includes him becoming the third-youngest ever to defeat a Grandmaster in classical time control when he beat the 66-year-old Raset Ziatdinov of the US in December last year.
Vijay, Aarit’s father, revealed his son’s journey from an amateur to a professional in just a week.
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"He was five years old when his elder sister Aarna taught him chess. In one week, he was beating us. Not like I am a serious player - I am the equivalent of a bathroom singer in the sport: a casual player,” Vijay said in a chat with The Indian Express. “But we saw his potential, so we got him working with a coach. And in a few days, he won an international online tournament.”
"Sometimes when he has a bad tournament, we jokingly tell him we'll stop your chess, to which he says, ‘Do whatever you can, I won't stop playing chess," his father, Vijay, continued.