An eight-year-old chess prodigy from Singapore has become the youngest chess player to beat a grandmaster.

After a three-hour game of chess at Switzerland’s Burgdorfer Stadthaus-Open, Ashwath Kaushik – who is eight and six months – beat the 37-year-old Polish grandmaster Jacek Stopa on Sunday, according to the Singapore Star. 

According to Chess.com, the competitive chess world “has recently been witnessing a surge in children scoring extraordinary results at an even earlier age, perhaps propelled by the pandemic and a rating system lagging behind in keeping pace with their rise in strength”. 

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