8-year-old Tamizh Amudhan defeats Vincent Keymer: Against all odds

by ChessBase India
5/5/2026 – It was a rainy night in Sivakasi, and there was a power cut, but it didn't stop 8-year-old Tamizh Amudhan from playing Freestyle Friday on chess.com. The laptop was on, the mobile hotspot was connected, the candle was lit, and the spirit was high as usual. It was 8:30 PM IST on 1 May when Tamizh Amudhan got paired up against elite GM Vincent Keymer, who recently qualified for the Freestyle World Championship 2027 after winning the Grenke Freestyle Chess tournament, and guess what happened? Check out the game in this article.

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Tamizh tricks Keymer!

By Devansh Singh

The game itself is a perfect example of Tamizh's resistance. He had a really bad position out of the opening, and Keymer missed a mating combination to finish the game. Most players get nervous when they notice they could have lost a few moves ago, but this was not the case with Tamizh. He came back from a losing position and played a solid sequence of attacking moves to win the game.

You can see the boy's dedication in the picture below, sitting on the floor with his laptop on a pillow. His dad, Sathish, is sitting there to keep an eye on his talented son. And finally, the candle in the bottom corner, helping to keep some light on, but the brightest source of light isn't that candle, it's the boy Tamizh himself!

Tamizh Amudhan

The picture was clicked by his dad, Sathish, just after Tamizh defeated Keymer!

Out of 960 possible positions in Freestyle Chess, position 880 was chosen randomly for the first round of Freestyle Friday, and Tamizh was playing with black against Keymer.

Tamizh played 9...Ne8, and Keymer could have won the game right here with 10.Bxh7 (the Greek Gift sacrifice), but he castled, and that gave Tamizh a chance to avoid checkmate.

Keymer had 57 seconds left, and he just took one second before playing this move, and it turned out to be a huge disaster, as Tamizh found a brilliant attacking idea starting with 22...Nh4 followed by 23...Rg6, winning the exchange after a few more moves.

Tamizh finished the game in style by playing 44...a5!, and Keymer resigned.


The latest interview with Tamizh


Supported by Hatsun Chess Academy

Seventy kilometres away from the Madurai airport is a place named Thiruthangal. It is home to the Hatsun Chess Academy, a one-of-its-kind residential chess academy. Supported by the CSR activities of the Hatsun Agro Products Pvt. Ltd, one of India's biggest dairy-related companies, and powered by the vision of GM Vishnu Prasanna and his team, this is sure to create new champions in the country.

In fact, Hatsun Chess Academy is now fully sponsoring Tamizh Amudhan

Gukesh Dommaraju, Vishnu Prassana

Vishnu began training Gukesh when he was around 2200 and worked with him until he became one of the best in the world


Chandramogan from Hatsun Group, the billionaire who has a vision for chess

In this video, Sagar Shah manages to speak with the 77-year-old founder about his vision for chess in Hatsun and the country


Tamizh was just four years old when he first learned chess. His first exposure to chess came from his cousins, who had themselves only recently begun playing the game. Tamizh quickly began showing an instinctive understanding of the board.

The boy's parents have done immense sacrifice to support his training. His mother lives with him, nearly 350 kilometres away from home, while his father stays back with his sister. The family has happily embraced this arrangement so that Tamizh can pursue his chess career.

Tamizh Amudhan

Count the trophies!


Doesn’t every chess game get decided by mistakes? Absolutely. But most players never truly comprehend that they are making the same kind of mistakes over and over again.



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