Fagernes International: Nihal Sarin announces his arrival

12-year-old International Master Nihal Sarin made his first GM Norm in the TV 2 Fagernes GM International Open in Norway. He did so at the age of 12 years 09 months. He started off by coasting through his first two games where he swatted his lower rated opponents fairly easily.

After a few sedate draws against GM opposition, he caught everyone’s attention with the following game against Israeli GM Evgeny Postny (2606). [Photo: Tom Eriksen]

Nihal has always impressed everyone with his logic and intuitive strategic understanding, but this game had a lot to do with concrete calculations, and he showed that he can handle such positions as well with equal aplomb.

And then he followed it up with this beauty against Chatalbashev. [Photo: Tom Eriksen]

In the middle of the tournament, Nihal, a big fan of fast time controls, played in the Fagerenes Easter Rapids where he demolished a field of 2200-2400 players to take first place with 5.5/6, ahead of the remaining players by a full point. He won 200 euros for this result (and an army of fans among the spectators). In this picture, he can be seen with the ever cheerful chief organiser of this beautiful tournament, Hans Olav Lahlum. [Photo: Tom Eriksen]

Nihal defended a slightly worse ending out of a Caro-Kann, which he played only for the second time in his career, against the top seed GM Andriy Vovk (2636) to hold a draw. [Photo: Tom Eriksen]

He finished with a draw against GM Alon Greenfeld of Israel, to secure his Grandmaster norm with a score of 6.0/9, tying for the second place with two others—GM Erik Blomqvist and FM Benjamin Avola, who also secured a GM norm. Nihal was placed fourth on the tiebreak in this tournament with an average rating of 2335 and remained undefeated throughout.

So focused he was on the next game at hand, being prepared, that the overall result was lost from sight. It shows a refreshing approach that suggests it is about good chess and good games, and not focused on results.

Final Standings:

Click above for higher resolution. Full crosstable.

Nihal's Development as a Player:

Chess Books and Chess Games!

What stands out the most in Nihal’s play is his astute understanding of nuanced parts of chess that can’t be completely taught. It can only be understood by sense, and that sense is achieved by spending time on chess with attention and absorbing tonnes of intangible data subconsciously.

For Nihal, this is something natural. His typical day starts as he wakes up, eats something quickly, goes to school (he is at the top of his class in academics), returns, has lunch, dives straight to his computer and plays online blitz. If he has a holiday he will do the same, minus the school. This is followed by reading/skimming chess books, following games live or just solving positions for fun.  He does this with full attention, and all of this comes naturally to him.

This whole, natural process has resulted in a mature positional understanding that cannot be quite taught. For example, here’s a game where he takes out a seasoned grandmaster with a series of simple, powerful moves based on logic:

Nihal in Sharjah [Photo: A.Karlovich]

A few weeks later, he followed it up with the following game, where he again displayed understanding and maturity beyond his years. Another thing that stands out is his tendency to play in the most principled way, giving priority to good moves, undaunted by his opponents stature.

Nihal in Sweden [Photo: Lars Hedlund]

And here’s a game where he showcases these abilities in a position without queens, against a strong GM who was once in the world top 100.

What does the future have in store?

Nihal has several good qualities, but the single most important quality that has carried him this far is his pure, unadulterated love for chess. His rate of absorption of new information about Chess is about 5x faster than mine, with his keen attention playing a key role in this ability to assimilate and learn things rapidly.

This love and passion is like Charmander’s flame, and as long as this keeps burning, it’ll only be a matter of time before this Charmeleon becomes a very powerful Charizard.

Yes, Nihal isn’t just a Charmander anymore. Even the World Champion didn’t find the going easy in the following PRO Chess league game, where Nihal had a couple of chances to draw—this from a difficult position right out of the opening. [Photo: Nihal Sarin Facebook]

PRO Chess League is online, fast play and isn’t exactly a classical game. But 42 years ago, the first encounter between a World Champion and a 12-year-old kid was also a non-standard game (a simul) which ended in a loss for the 12-year-old kid after he frittered away a promising position. 9 years later, they met in a historic match. Will history repeat itself?

Only time will tell.

Like Nihal's Facebook Community Page to follow him on his journey.