The Dark Side of the Chess Super Kid

 

                           Ashwath Kaushik could be the next super talent, but is there a dark side? 

It seems every week there is a new tale of a child defeating a Grandmaster at chess and I myself lost to 9 year old Supratit Banerjere in the Hastings blitz event. I think during the course of my career I've rarely lost to someone that young, although I did become part of a record once when Murugan Thiruchelvam beat me in a Richmond rapidplay when he was only ten and at the time became the youngest ever to defeat an International master; although nowadays, such a result would be commonplace. I've mentioned recently that I think this generation of eight year olds is the most promising to emerge since the 1990 vintage of Magnus Carlsen, Sergey Karjakin, Ian Nepomniachtchi, David Howell and others. 

Ironically it is Davids record of beating a GM that was the one to fall to Ashwath, and it is reasonable to assume that there will be many other records that will fall to this stellar young talent during the course of his career. Former British champion Harry Grieve played Ashwath in the final round and described him as an "amazing talent."

But there is a dark side to this. It is reasonable to assume that these "superkids" aren't just showing up, and while often being freakishly talented, are also putting many hours into studying chess. But I would also assume in many cases that it is the parent who is driving them on, and while perhaps not "forcing" them to study, are at least strongly encouraging it.

A famous example of hothousing was the Polgar sisters, encouraged by their father Laszlo to spend most of their waking hours studying chess. But is such behaviour bordering on cruelty? Many talk about how horse racing is cruel, because these horses don't ask to race; effectively they don't have a choice. Maybe in the chess world it is the same thing, with competition so fierce that only the most punishing of regimes is likely to produce a champion.

News has broken about a Youtube mother found guilty of child abuse: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13105315/Ruby-Franke-child-abuse-court-sentencing-Utah.html#comments

While not suggesting any of these chess families are on this scale, it demonstrates both the dark side of Youtube, and parents exceeding their brief. An extremely popular chess channel on Youtube is Chessbase India and they routinely promote videos about super talents, like the one below:

In India, success in chess is a route to national acclaim and a better life. There are dedicated chess schools in that country that have been created with the purpose of producing chess champions and in the case of Gukesh and Pragg, have already been successful.  Super talents is an industry in itself in India. But how much of this is coming from the adults, and how much is from the child itself? Do these kids ask to be taken away from school, do they ask to already been given an adult life, spending almost every hour studying chess? Have a look at the kid in the video thumbnail above. It isn't him that is smiling in the photos, it is his parents. 

Everytime an eight year old defeats a GM or a seven year old demonstrates amazing feats of calculation, the bar gets risen higher. And that means that the families involved in these enterprises are driven to more and more extremes. I can't help but think that this is a worrying development.