Aussie chess prodigy Reyaansh outlines Grandmaster ambitions

For 11-year-old chess prodigy* Reyaansh Chakrabarty, the hit Netflix show The Queen’s Gambit* sparked a love for the game that now takes him around the world on a quest to become Australia’s first world champion.

“During the pandemic, I watched it a little bit, it’s one of the things that got me interested in chess,” he told NewsWire in an exclusive interview.

“I didn’t really know what chess was but I found it quite amusing, the pieces.

“She (the character Beth Harmon) is like looking up on the ceiling and watching the pieces move.”

Like his fictional hero, Reyaansh imagines chess games in his head.

“I see pieces kind of everywhere,” he said.

Hailing from Western Sydney, Reyaansh is an International Chess Federation (FIDE) master with a classical rating* of 2346 and his sharp rise has the Australian chess world excited.

“He is showing a lot of promise at a young age,” Australian Chess Federation publicity director Paul Power told NewsWire.

Australia has only produced 10 Grandmasters from a global field of about 2000.

“It’s hard to predict that he is necessarily going to become a Grandmaster, but he is certainly going about it the right way,” Mr Power said.

“Should he get to the GM title, Australia would be very pleased. It would be a feather in the cap*, not just for Reyaansh and his family but for Australia.”

Reyaansh’s ambitions go even further and he dreams about becoming world champion.

“It’s a huge call but right now I’m focused on improving step-by-step,” he said.

It’s a bold ambition for an 11-year-old but chess is a young person’s game: the current world champion is 18-year-old Indian wonder Gukesh Dommaraju.

Reyaansh, a Year 6 student at Strathfield South in Sydney’s Inner West, trains about five hours a day during the week, one hour before school and then four hours in the afternoon, and for eight hours on Saturdays and Sundays.

“My school is very supportive of my chess, so I don’t have much homework to do,” he said.

“But of course you still have to go to school and complete whatever you have to do.”

He practises tactics and openings, the first few moves in chess that dictate the development of a game, and constantly analyses his games looking for errors.

Reyaansh also has face-to-face classes with Polish Grandmaster Jacek Stopa through the Sydney Chess Academy.

“He teaches me how deeply you need to prepare to get to the GM level,” Reyaansh said.

“At the end of the class I’m very tired. The puzzles he gives me are very tough, like Grandmaster level.”

Reyaansh has already beaten GMs, including Australian heavyweight* Darryl Johansen at a match in Melbourne.

“It was the first GM I defeated,” Reyaansh said.

“It was a good game. It was probably heading towards a draw but he blundered* and I won it.”

The young talent, who likes to read JK Rowling and the Dog Man comic books, returned to Sydney last week after a tournament in Norway and has travelled to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Belgium, Switzerland and Singapore to compete against the world’s best.

When asked what he found really special about chess, he pointed to the intensity of the game and the mental focus it took to win.

“Even if you play perfectly the whole game, if you make one mistake, it’s over,” he said.

Mr Power has seen a growing number of young kids trying out the game.

“The enthusiasm of primary level students is refreshing,” he said.

For Reyaansh, finding a “love for the game” is the first step other children should take in their own chess pursuits.

“If you don’t love it, you’ll feel bored with it,” he said.

YOUNGEST EVER CHESS WORLD CHAMPION CROWNED

POLL

GLOSSARY

• prodigy: someone with very great ability, which usually shows itself when they’re a young child
• gambit: planned series of moves at the beginning of a game of chess and more generally any clever move or moves to get ahead or gain advantage
• classical rating: rating system based on a player’s performance in competitive games against other rated players
• feather in the cap: expression meaning an achievement or honour to be proud of
• heavyweight: in this instance, it refers to someone powerful and important; as with the term “heavy hitter”, it comes from the category in boxing classifying the heaviest competitors
• blundered: made a serious and sometimes clumsy or silly mistake

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QUICK QUIZ

1. Who is the current chess world champion?
2. Australia has produced how many Grandmasters so far?
3. Which Australian Grandmaster heavyweight did Reyaansh defeat in Melbourne?
4. Which author and separate comic book series does Reyaansh enjoy reading?
5. What is Reyaansh’s training schedule for chess?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. “How to be a champion” poster
What does it take for kids like Reyaansh to become a Grandmaster or world champion of chess?

Create a visual poster mapping the qualities, characteristics and habits they need to have to achieve their goal.

Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
Is chess a sport? Write the arguments for and against this argument.

FOR

AGAINST

Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Exercise the body and the mind
Exercise is not only important for the body, but it’s a lot of fun as well. Let’s bring more exercise into classroom learning by creating a VCOP PE game.

You can add a VCOP challenge to pretty much any game, and it’s a great way to encourage the teacher to let the class play more games.

Here is an example to get you started, then you create one of your own.

VCOP dodgeball
The normal rules of dodgeball apply. Two teams throw soft balls at each other and if you get hit, you have to sit out. The team who knocks out all the players on the other team, wins.

VCOP challenge: when you get eliminated, collect a mini-whiteboard and a basic clause from the sidelines. Up-level the sentence (make it better) by adding VCOP. When you show the teacher your completed sentence, you can return to the game.

Play for a set amount of time and the team with the most players left on the court wins.

Support: use the “Up-Level It” card set - players have to complete one card from the set instead of completing all VCOP challenges.

What can you come up with?