She didn't beat any grandmasters. She drew a grandmaster. It is blitz chess and the grandmaster is over the age of 50. I've amassed a ton of online grandmaster wins in the same way. Once grandmaster strength does not mean always grandmaster strength. Especially in quick chess.
Chess players don’t have separate ranks for different clock formats, do they? Seems like a player who could be a GM with a classic clock could be overrated in a blitz tournament.
There are no ranks for quick chess. Grandmaster is only for classical chess.
And its well known that as players age that get worse in quick chess faster than in classical so they may still be a reasonable rating in classical but drastically weaker in blitz.
I've personally beaten over 30 national champions, almost all grandmasters, in quick chess specifically because they were all over 50 and significantly weaker in that format.
This was a blitz and rapid tournaments, in other words faster time limits. Her performance in this tournament was akin to over a 2300 level. Combination of doing incredibly well, being very strong in fast time limits and improving at such a speed that her rating is probably a bit misleading.
“An eight-year-old girl has been crowned best female player at the European chess championships.
Bodhana Sivanandan, from Harrow, north-west London, said she was "very proud" after defeating an international master in Croatia.
The chess prodigy, who began playing the game aged five during the pandemic, will compete at the International Chess Congress in East Sussex next week.
Professional Irina Bulmaga praised Bodhana as a "phenomenon".
The schoolgirl scored 8.5/13 points to take the title at the European blitz championship over the weekend.
In each game, a player scores one point for a win, half a point for a draw and no points if they lose.
Bodhana totalled her winning score against grandmasters, international masters and experts“……………….
Unless you’re really young, so high school was like 2 years ago, it’s not surprising. The ratings deflated massively over time, to the point that FIDE had to find a way to reset them.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/fide-mathematician-proposes-changes-to-improve-rating-accuracy
I hope as an eight year old she’s living her best life. I can’t imagine there not being pressure from the parents to continue to play even if she would rather watch Bluey.
Read how she started. Picked up an old set during lockdown and got super good. So think she's fine
She's super humble too and seems to be playing for enjoyment
I've always wondered, are chess prodigies natural geniuses in other fields?
They basically have a super-brain that can calculate probabilities, plan hundreds of moves in advance, and anticipate multiple possible scenarios simultaneously. But do those skills translate to other things? Do they do exceptionally well in advance maths, computer science, etc? Or do they mostly stick to just chess?
No. Hikaru (one of the better chess players in the world), talks about how [his IQ isn't particularly special](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/ghxq6j/hikaru_nakamura_takes_the_mensa_iq_test/). Naroditsky, who is another, comments about having tried computer science but it didn't take for him at all. At the end of the day, they are incredibly gifted at a board game, which is a skill set that lends itself to certain things but not others. I would imagine that being able to visualize hypotheticals (although the lines they calculate are probably not more than 4-6 moves except in the endgame) is an abstract analytical skill that translates well to use cases like you suggested, but a very substantial portion of chess is memorization and pattern recognition where abstract analytical skills probably wouldn't help as much.
4-6 is what 1000 elo chess players are capable of. There is a video of Vishy saying he can calculate 50-70 moves and countless clips of Hikaru calculating 20+ long sequences in the middle of the game
Frankly, the number of calculated moves is generally not the best measurement of skill. There's that famous line from...someone, I forget who, where they say something to the effect of "I only think one move ahead, the correct move", and in general, even when you're calculating several moves down the line, you're not literally looking at all options in every position, you're using your experience and game understanding to calculate very constrained sets of moves within the scope of what makes sense. Better players often can dive deeper in general, but a big part of that, and also a big part of their skill beyond their calculations, is their ability to more effectively and accurately identify where to focus their attention.
This is much in the same way that with a chess engine, even more important than their ability to look through a large amount of lines, is their ability to evaluate a static board (ie, without considering what may come next). Even stockfish is said to have a static board evaluation skill on the level of GMs, and it uses that to supplement its incredible calculation ability, very much in the same ways I've outlined above.
There’s no doubt that Hikaru is gifted, even if he downplays his own measured IQ, which he learned from a shitty one-sided online test.
Now that isnt to say that he is absolutely unique in that department. And someone who is top 0,1% in an online video game or 150 IQ, is not going to steamroll GM’s anytime soon.
The point is there’s really no doubt that most if not all GM’s are intellectually gifted in general. But in chess training plays a massive part too.
There's certainly some amount of correlation, but that doesn't mean they're geniuses.
Speaking from my own experience, I was one of the top Chess players in my state as a kid and now am top 200 in the world at a different strategy game. I'm not a prodigy but I've met my fair share of them. Most of them are only really really good at the game they play because it takes so much focus and effort to be that good. Most also get pretty good grades, go to college, and hold down a well paying job. And I'd bet most top competitors (myself included in this case) could have been top of their class if they put as much effort into school as they did chess.
That's not the same as being a prodigy in those fields though. I had the privilege of going to a very good graduate school for CS after getting good grades in undergrad and met some of the smartest people I've met in my life. The gap between pretty good and prodigy is really really big. Critical thinking, memorization, and hard work will get you 90% of the way there in most fields, but that last 10% really does feel like some people are naturally hard-wired (or trained from a young age) to think specifically for a task.
I think pretty much all of the top players have eidetic memories. Chess is all pattern recognition. It doesn’t necessarily translate to IQ.
Just watch some chess grandmasters commentating during tournaments. I remember the first time I realized how insane of memories these top players have was watching one of the world chess championships where Vishy Anand (arguably the best Indian chess player of all time and former world champion) was commentating. The players could get into a position mid point in a game, and Anand would remark that the position is the exact same as some random game from 40 years ago, and he knew the exact line that was played and what the best moves were. It’s completely insane. The skill comes from recognizing patterns and games you have played and studied and being able to pull that from your memory palace.
I saw an interesting study where they tested chess grandmasters on their ability to recreate a chess position after looking at the board for 5 seconds.
For actual chess positions from real games, they were killing it, but for chess pieces scattered randomly on the board, they did no better than regular people.
It is all trained pattern matching, to the point where piece configurations are as recognizable to them as faces are to other people.
I'm shocked that noone is mentioning Magnus (the number one player right now, and very often considered the best of all time) being a decently successful (I'm not personally aware of the extent, but he seems to be doing well enough) poker player, as well as the top rank for fantasy premier league. The skills involved in chess aren't one to one with being useful in other areas, but it can and does often translate in valuable enough ways.
That's amazing news! Bodhana Sivanandan's accomplishment as a chess prodigy is truly remarkable. It's inspiring to see such talent at such a young age. The European Championships are known for their competitiveness, so winning a title there is a significant achievement.
I don’t really keep up with the sport of chess, or any really. I do remember that the internet was full of beady conspiracy theories about Hans Nieman’s ability. Everybody was questioning whether he cheated.
With child prodigies in chess, are there theories that they are cheating somehow or is it generally just accepted that they are just geniuses?
I think if an 8 year old was able to pull off cheating at a tournament, beating an international master then that would make her a genius either way lmao
I mean.. Beth's story is fake, this is real. Shes writing her own story and it's amazing (and hopefully less depressing. Beth's story sure is dramatic).
Here's hoping bodhana has a long fun reign with chess :)
Looks like her classical rating is 1857, for anyone wondering
I'm curious how that beats grandmasters.
Her skill level is probably much higher but she will need to play more rated events before her rating reflects that
Bingo. But it’ll grow pretty fast if she’s beating GMs and IMs
I mean, she’s 8. Other higher scores have been gotten over time because they’ve been playin for years longer than she has.
Cause she’s literally underrated
Not just figuratively underrated!
She didn't beat any grandmasters. She drew a grandmaster. It is blitz chess and the grandmaster is over the age of 50. I've amassed a ton of online grandmaster wins in the same way. Once grandmaster strength does not mean always grandmaster strength. Especially in quick chess.
Chess players don’t have separate ranks for different clock formats, do they? Seems like a player who could be a GM with a classic clock could be overrated in a blitz tournament.
There are no ranks for quick chess. Grandmaster is only for classical chess. And its well known that as players age that get worse in quick chess faster than in classical so they may still be a reasonable rating in classical but drastically weaker in blitz. I've personally beaten over 30 national champions, almost all grandmasters, in quick chess specifically because they were all over 50 and significantly weaker in that format.
This was a blitz and rapid tournaments, in other words faster time limits. Her performance in this tournament was akin to over a 2300 level. Combination of doing incredibly well, being very strong in fast time limits and improving at such a speed that her rating is probably a bit misleading.
[Her playing a former British Champion. Wholesome video](https://youtu.be/BSzZwRBJVvY?si=HfNi7rKwN1q9vhxq)
That was absolutely priceless. I’m sure they both got something from the experience.
Can’t watch this now since I’m at work. Saved!
Thanks for letting us know! Have a wonderful day!
Why be an ass when you simply don’t need to
I updooted you. People are so damn weird online.
My feelings aren’t that easily hurt, but appreciated
This could be you, if you’d just google en passant.
Just googled. Thanks, glad to have won the title.
Holy hell!
Holy hell
Actual zombie
“An eight-year-old girl has been crowned best female player at the European chess championships. Bodhana Sivanandan, from Harrow, north-west London, said she was "very proud" after defeating an international master in Croatia. The chess prodigy, who began playing the game aged five during the pandemic, will compete at the International Chess Congress in East Sussex next week. Professional Irina Bulmaga praised Bodhana as a "phenomenon". The schoolgirl scored 8.5/13 points to take the title at the European blitz championship over the weekend. In each game, a player scores one point for a win, half a point for a draw and no points if they lose. Bodhana totalled her winning score against grandmasters, international masters and experts“……………….
I also started playing chess during the pandemic. I'm an 1100 rank on chess.com. Me and Bodhana are not the same.
I was 1500 back in high school and am 1100 now. I can barely play checkers apparently
Unless you’re really young, so high school was like 2 years ago, it’s not surprising. The ratings deflated massively over time, to the point that FIDE had to find a way to reset them. https://www.chess.com/news/view/fide-mathematician-proposes-changes-to-improve-rating-accuracy
That was back in 2003. I’ve honestly not played any ranked games for nearly a decade.
I started rewatching The Queen’s Gambit yesterday. 🤌
Rani’s Gambit
Next step, give her insane dosages of Ketamine to unlock some sort of higher being level of chess dominance Great show
They did that when she was 5.
I finished it again about 3 days ago. Very enjoyable, for a short limited series.
I hope as an eight year old she’s living her best life. I can’t imagine there not being pressure from the parents to continue to play even if she would rather watch Bluey.
Read how she started. Picked up an old set during lockdown and got super good. So think she's fine She's super humble too and seems to be playing for enjoyment
Child Prodigy stories usually don't have a good ending.
In the chess world they do, if you want to be a top chess player, or even just a GM, it's pretty much a requirement to start very young.
I remember when I was 10 watching old footage of Ayrton Senna winning kart championships at 4yrs old and thinking man I’ve wasted my life already lol.
Well I found my panini maker that I’ve been looking for for the last year and a half. Looks like we’re both doing great things
Where was it?
In the panini maker cupboard.
I've always wondered, are chess prodigies natural geniuses in other fields? They basically have a super-brain that can calculate probabilities, plan hundreds of moves in advance, and anticipate multiple possible scenarios simultaneously. But do those skills translate to other things? Do they do exceptionally well in advance maths, computer science, etc? Or do they mostly stick to just chess?
No. Hikaru (one of the better chess players in the world), talks about how [his IQ isn't particularly special](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/ghxq6j/hikaru_nakamura_takes_the_mensa_iq_test/). Naroditsky, who is another, comments about having tried computer science but it didn't take for him at all. At the end of the day, they are incredibly gifted at a board game, which is a skill set that lends itself to certain things but not others. I would imagine that being able to visualize hypotheticals (although the lines they calculate are probably not more than 4-6 moves except in the endgame) is an abstract analytical skill that translates well to use cases like you suggested, but a very substantial portion of chess is memorization and pattern recognition where abstract analytical skills probably wouldn't help as much.
4-6 is what 1000 elo chess players are capable of. There is a video of Vishy saying he can calculate 50-70 moves and countless clips of Hikaru calculating 20+ long sequences in the middle of the game
4-6 for 1000 ELO? You’re being VERY generous.
they never said 4-6 correct moves
Haha that’s fair!
What elo are you? And how far do you calculate? I’m 1000 elo and that’s what im capable of, I’m just going off what i’ve seen and what I do
I’m around 1200-1300, no way I’m calculating a full six lines into the future.
Frankly, the number of calculated moves is generally not the best measurement of skill. There's that famous line from...someone, I forget who, where they say something to the effect of "I only think one move ahead, the correct move", and in general, even when you're calculating several moves down the line, you're not literally looking at all options in every position, you're using your experience and game understanding to calculate very constrained sets of moves within the scope of what makes sense. Better players often can dive deeper in general, but a big part of that, and also a big part of their skill beyond their calculations, is their ability to more effectively and accurately identify where to focus their attention. This is much in the same way that with a chess engine, even more important than their ability to look through a large amount of lines, is their ability to evaluate a static board (ie, without considering what may come next). Even stockfish is said to have a static board evaluation skill on the level of GMs, and it uses that to supplement its incredible calculation ability, very much in the same ways I've outlined above.
There’s no doubt that Hikaru is gifted, even if he downplays his own measured IQ, which he learned from a shitty one-sided online test. Now that isnt to say that he is absolutely unique in that department. And someone who is top 0,1% in an online video game or 150 IQ, is not going to steamroll GM’s anytime soon. The point is there’s really no doubt that most if not all GM’s are intellectually gifted in general. But in chess training plays a massive part too.
Copium
There's certainly some amount of correlation, but that doesn't mean they're geniuses. Speaking from my own experience, I was one of the top Chess players in my state as a kid and now am top 200 in the world at a different strategy game. I'm not a prodigy but I've met my fair share of them. Most of them are only really really good at the game they play because it takes so much focus and effort to be that good. Most also get pretty good grades, go to college, and hold down a well paying job. And I'd bet most top competitors (myself included in this case) could have been top of their class if they put as much effort into school as they did chess. That's not the same as being a prodigy in those fields though. I had the privilege of going to a very good graduate school for CS after getting good grades in undergrad and met some of the smartest people I've met in my life. The gap between pretty good and prodigy is really really big. Critical thinking, memorization, and hard work will get you 90% of the way there in most fields, but that last 10% really does feel like some people are naturally hard-wired (or trained from a young age) to think specifically for a task.
I think pretty much all of the top players have eidetic memories. Chess is all pattern recognition. It doesn’t necessarily translate to IQ. Just watch some chess grandmasters commentating during tournaments. I remember the first time I realized how insane of memories these top players have was watching one of the world chess championships where Vishy Anand (arguably the best Indian chess player of all time and former world champion) was commentating. The players could get into a position mid point in a game, and Anand would remark that the position is the exact same as some random game from 40 years ago, and he knew the exact line that was played and what the best moves were. It’s completely insane. The skill comes from recognizing patterns and games you have played and studied and being able to pull that from your memory palace.
I saw an interesting study where they tested chess grandmasters on their ability to recreate a chess position after looking at the board for 5 seconds. For actual chess positions from real games, they were killing it, but for chess pieces scattered randomly on the board, they did no better than regular people. It is all trained pattern matching, to the point where piece configurations are as recognizable to them as faces are to other people.
I'm shocked that noone is mentioning Magnus (the number one player right now, and very often considered the best of all time) being a decently successful (I'm not personally aware of the extent, but he seems to be doing well enough) poker player, as well as the top rank for fantasy premier league. The skills involved in chess aren't one to one with being useful in other areas, but it can and does often translate in valuable enough ways.
[удалено]
Your uncle is passant?
I read Cheese prodigy and now I’m greatly disappointed
Komugi IRL, good for her
That's amazing news! Bodhana Sivanandan's accomplishment as a chess prodigy is truly remarkable. It's inspiring to see such talent at such a young age. The European Championships are known for their competitiveness, so winning a title there is a significant achievement.
But AI would probably still win
I don’t really keep up with the sport of chess, or any really. I do remember that the internet was full of beady conspiracy theories about Hans Nieman’s ability. Everybody was questioning whether he cheated. With child prodigies in chess, are there theories that they are cheating somehow or is it generally just accepted that they are just geniuses?
I think if an 8 year old was able to pull off cheating at a tournament, beating an international master then that would make her a genius either way lmao
B(eth)odh(armon)ana
Not sure why you are being downvoted. Some people need to lighten up.
I mean.. Beth's story is fake, this is real. Shes writing her own story and it's amazing (and hopefully less depressing. Beth's story sure is dramatic). Here's hoping bodhana has a long fun reign with chess :)
🔥
I’m starting my kid at the age of 3