[tibbar]

This was during an online rapid tournament. So still very impressive, but Magnus loses games online all the time and I'm not _quite_ sure why this is news.

It is interesting which junior players Magnus invited to the tournament, though - besides Praggnanandhaa, there's also Andrey Esipenko, who _did_ beat Magnus in a classical game once at the prestigious Tata Steel Masters 2021, and also Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who beat Magnus late last year en route to becoming the World Rapid Champion at 17 years old. A fun group! With Vincent Keymer in the mix too, you're only really missing Nihal Sarin and (of course) Firouzja for many of the future faces of chess.

[Edit: the article says that Praggnanandhaa is the youngest player ever to beat Magnus since 2013, which would definitely be newsworthy. I think the article must be leaving out important context, since this tournament is (1) online, (2) speed chess and (3) not FIDE rated, so it typically wouldn't be included in records, and Magnus has almost certainly lost random online games to younger players before. I'm guessing the article is referencing some other source without providing the relevant criteria, which is why it looked a little weird to me.]

[cjbprime]

Moreover, Carlsen is currently symptomatic with a confirmed case of COVID.

https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/chess/magnus-carlse...

[yashap]

This context would certainly be great in the article, but I still feel it’s newsworthy. Assuming the article is correct, he’s the youngest player ever to beat Magnus since he became World Champion in 2013 - that alone is worth noticing.

He’s also the 6th youngest chess grandmaster ever, so it’s not like he’s a nobody, he’s a legit prodigy. Plus India has traditionally not been a strong chess nation (per capita), but has been up and coming recently, so that adds to the appeal of the story.

[screye]

I mean, per capita, India is terrible at everything. We are much better at chess than say soccer or Basketball.

[herodoturtle]

Your cricket is world class though ^_^

[harry8]

Ask your Indian friends about the national cricket team of New Zealand in world cup & world test competition (yeah, I know), then work out the per-capita of that contest.

India probably have the best cricket team in the world right now and they have depth. Their second eleven might be in the top 5. They are awesome and a period of India being the top dog is a good thing for cricket. (Some friendly played, properly tense games against Pakistan would make it even better, we can't have everything).

   India pop 1,380 million
   NZ pop 5 million
   Norway also about 5 million

[Fnoord]

True, we tend to forget the size of the population when we compare countries. But we should also not forget that someone from a rich country has a higher chance to get funding for sports.

[harry8]

Absolutely wealth is critical and way, way beyond funding. You don't play at a serious level as a kid if you're genuinely poor for so many reasons. A poorer, more populous, country with higher density living has relatively much more expensive access to playing fields. In chess it's more likely to be a function of tradition, interest, free time & resource availability (computers seem like they might be important but wtf would I know about it or how many in India have readily available access to play games?) Potentially health & nutrition of pregnant mothers could play some part in some of it for some individuals and may not be equivalent across all national borders. Domestic culture and whatever class and or caste system is influential in getting access to playing in the best competitions as a junior really matters.

New Zealand is wealthy, has more playing fields than they can use, anyone who wants to can afford to play and is welcomed - even more so if they can join in and help /us/ beat those bastards from across town for whatever value of across town is most relevant to the particular team. There's a metric fudge-tonne of old cranky bastards who want to tell you what to do to do it better, not all of them are useless either. At least that's my read as a foreigner who visited once. The proportion of New Zealanders who trace their heritage to the sub-continent is likely pretty small (wikipedia says 5%). The proportion of the New Zealand national cricket team who trace their heritage to the sub-continent is quite large in comparison (~30% depending on who is selected this week?) There was a test match recently between India and NZ where all the wickets in the match were taken by people tracing their heritage to India. Cultural tradition might have something to say about that too.

Likewise Norway is close to the richest country per capita in the world. Hard to think of anywhere you'd rather be if you were bringing up kids and in the bottom 10% of wealth & income. If your kid takes an interest in chess they are likely to be able to pursue it, is my guess (Norwegians can pipe up to say how ignorant I am if necessary). Not true everywhere in the world.

[robofanatic]

What’s the point in comparing the number of people living in India and Norway or NZ?

[harry8]

None really beyond interest, amusement.

@screye picked per capita as a measure. @herodoturtle pointed out how good India are at cricket right now. Seemed interesting and fun to combine those especially given recent cricket results and that basically nobody lives in NZ? Sometimes following these digressions leads somewhere interesting, informative, instructive and entertaining. Not always.

[aloisdg]

Same in Kabaddi

[Abishek_Muthian]

India does quite well in free style wrestling too, Both men and women[1].

India ranks 3rd in field hockey(men)[2]. Women's team is doing well recently too.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrestling_in_India

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_hockey_in_India

[OJFord]

I'd never heard of it before I saw SRK playing with/against the sea in Dear Zindagi. So now that's the image I have when I read a comment like yours, and it takes me a minute to remember what it actually is!

[revel]

just putting it out there as a random foreigner that happened to watch kabaddi randomly on tv while travelling -- kabaddi rules! Great spectator sport

[ComradePhil]

I have played Kabaddi as a kid but somehow never imagined that it was televised. Looked for clips of Pro Kabbadi League on YouTube and couldn't help but laugh out loud because of it being presented as a serious sport with commentators and everything.

[prox]

Never knew about that sport, looks pretty cool!

[baybal2]

Nodirbek was also a teenager when he first defeated him (and no, his last win wasn't the first, but first on a tournament of this level.) Norwegian supercomputer is still a human, and he has bad days.

[qiskit]

> This was during an online rapid tournament. So still very impressive, but Magnus loses games online all the time and I'm not _quite_ sure why this is news.

Not to mention, Pragg wasn't even the lowest rated player to beat Magnus in this unrated tournament. Eric Hansen is even lower rated than pragg and he beat magnus. Sure hansen is older but so what? Pragg didn't even make it out of the preliminary stage of this tournament while hansen did.

This news story reeks of advertising masquerading as news. India is a potential huge market and it seems like the chess industry paid for this news.

As someone who follows chess, this story is so forced and unbelievable. Pragg came in 11th out of 16 and didn't make it past the first stage. Why turn it into such a huge news story?

If anything, the story should be about how pragg and ding liren have to compete in the middle of the time due to their time zones. The tournament is still going on and they make a huge story out of this? Does not compute.

[jsharpe]

To be fair, Eric Hansen's win was probably because of a Magnus Carlsen mouse slip. He made a totally nonsensical move and then immediately resigned.

[regularfry]

As a player with a rating probably, on a good day, somewhere around one third Carlsen's it is heartening to know that there is at least one aspect of his play that I am able to emulate precisely. And, it would seem, repeatedly.

[happytoexplain]

"Why is this news" is almost always an unnecessarily provocative "high-heat low-light" question. It's more substantial to point out mitigating factors and add missing context, as you also did.

[Semaphor]

> "high-heat low-light" question

What does that mean?

[hatefulmoron]

I read it as a metaphorical nod to light bulbs: an inefficient light bulb spends most of its energy toward heat while producing little light. Instead of producing illuminating discussion, a "high-heat low-light" question produces flames.

[Semaphor]

Sounds right, thanks.

[lordgrenville]

It's an idiom from Shakespeare (though nowadays we reverse it, since light is more desirable than heat). https://blog.editors.ca/?p=3435

[KingOfCoders]

Because India.

[Edit] Thanks for the comments, in now way is this meant prejudiced and derogatory, I have worked with many excellent Indian colleagues.

The country normally associated with Chess is Russia, lately India got a huge wave of great talents like Vidit Gujrathi or Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa.

[DrBenCarson]

I’ll go out of my way and assume you don’t mean to be prejudiced or derogatory.

In return, I ask that you understand that your phrasing is prejudiced and derogatory.

[Markoff]

What? I thought it's pretty common knowledge chess is very popular in India.

Which is why they are in 5th place in world. https://ratings.fide.com/top_federations.phtml

[yumraj]

> Because India.

Do you have something against India or Indians? That too a 16 year old Indian kid..

Hopefully that is not part of your CTO coaching..

[hackinthebochs]

It's well known that Indians will absolutely swarm any content about India put on the internet. I follow multiple youtubers that randomly see 10x their usual traffic on a video that happens to be about India in some way.

[mkl95]

This is a well known phenomenon. IMDb (Internet Movie Database) added a Top Rated Indian Movies page* because tons of users rate virtually every Indian movie 10/10.

* https://www.imdb.com/india/top-rated-indian-movies/

[2143]

> Indians will absolutely swarm any content about India put on the internet.

And because of the large population, even a small percentage would still be a large number.

But individual Indians do that on their own independent will though.

There's no central authority that declares to Indians "Ooh here's a new content about India. Go go go!"

[yumraj]

You do realize the India has 1.4B+ population.. So, even a small percentage is huge in absolute terms...

[ngc248]

And whats wrong with that? seriously asking.

[lmm]

Nothing wrong with it, but it distorts popularity metrics for India-related content.

[yunohn]

The USA’s disparate influence on global culture is so strong, yet we don’t say the popularity metrics are distorted for American content. Odd phrasing IMHO

[ngc248]

Youtubers basically get more views by Indians on India related content. Is that such a bad thing? i mean it has India related content.

[hackinthebochs]

Nothing wrong with it, it just explains why western media would create a positive story about India that is only marginally newsworthy.

[1024core]

Though, you may be surprised to learn that in general, western media and western commentators are pretty negative on India. See, for example, [1]. Whenever some positive news about India comes out, people come out of the woodwork with statements like "do people still shit on the streets?" "India is the rape capital of the world" "India should feed its people first", etc. etc.

Hence you can't really blame Indians for getting excited about a positive news story.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-29502062

[KingOfCoders]

Thanks for the comment, in no way is this meant prejudiced and derogatory, I have worked with many excellent Indian colleagues.

[Abishek_Muthian]

> I'm not _quite_ sure why this is news

Perhaps not for most chess aficionados, But I for one don't mind this being blasted all over the news because Indian children have not seen school for two years now and they're hooked on to worthless reality shows & soap operas on television/streaming sites/FB/Instagram/WhatsApp; If this news motivates some of them (or) their parents to direct their attention towards chess even if its just for the prospects of fame then I'm all in for it.

[spoonjim]

This is news because it's a 16-year-old Indian kid. India has a huge Anglophone online audience that loves to boost news of Indian accomplishments, particularly those of people achieving something beyond their years.

[whatshisface]

Any 16-year-old kid would make the news for doing this.

[spoonjim]

Yes but this news would not get this much exposure if it was a Russian kid. They simply don't have the same online footprint.

[rococode]

Case in point: Last year, 18-year-old Andrey Esipenko beat Carlsen in classical time controls. It was Carlsen's first classical loss against a teenager in 10 years, and his first loss to a sub-2700 player in 5 years. It was also just 3 months after Carlsen's record-breaking streak of 125 classical games with no losses came to an end.

There was a big buzz in the chess world at the time, but it was hardly front-page material for mainstream media.

That said, of course, newsworthiness is not a competition - so congrats to both youngsters for their awesome achievements. The upcoming chess generation is looking promising! (I expect we'll see similar headlines for Alireza Firouzja someday soon)

[dmurray]

Firouzja has dozens of wins against Carlsen already. I'm only surprised that Pragg didn't.

[rishikeshs]

As an Indian, I couldn't agree more.

[dartharva]

It's sports accomplishments in general. Like in most developing countries, sports has very low priority in the Indian society, so it becomes big news when an Indian excels in any sport because it's assumed he/she had very little institutional support.

[ngc248]

A prodigious kid beating the World number one would be news everywhere

[2143]

This would be news even if you, spoonjim, beat Carlsen :D

[youeseh]

Because, every time Magnus loses, it is news. When he is no longer number one, it will cease to be news.

[greyman]

No, it isn't. Especially not if it is online rapid tournament. Indian journalists made it news. :-)

On another note, I like that guy and he is great talent, I followed his games live during the recent Tata Steel tournament (that was real classic chess tournament). He will need to prove himself against other such talents like Firouzja, which I think is around 18 and also very good, ando also that young Hungarian guy has a lot of promise. Hopefully they bring Magnus down soon. ;-)

[okamiueru]

Exactly this. I was very confused why this in particular was made into a news story, because in online rapid chess, and even more so for bullet, the only surprising outcome would be if he didn't lose a whole bunch of games.

[kyawzazaw]

Because it is a young child

[oldstrangers]

Its not news to people who care about chess news, which is funny. Its news for people who don't play chess.

[gyc]

And, although not a junior, Eric Hansen aka one of the chessbrah also beat Magnus this tournament!

[nextaccountic]

You seem to know your stuff, so I have a question, where's Firouzja? I expected him to participate in more tournments

[tibbar]

Firouzja is at a different point in his career than the other juniors. For most people, competing in a top online tournament for prizes and a shot at taking down Magnus is a great use of time. But for Firouzja, who is the world no. 2 at 18 years old and will be participating in the next Candidates Tournament, it’s all about grinding out classical training, learning openings, etc. He spent some time doing the online circuit and even won Titled Tuesday (a major weekly tournament with hundreds of grandmasters) twice in a row last year. When he emerges again, it will be to show dominance against the world’s elite at the most rigorous time control, aiming for the next World Championship. That’s what he wants.

[Lapsa]

because of indian spam. happy 4 pragg though

[laxmin]

> loses games all the time

to 16 year olds?

That's the news.

[tibbar]

Definitely. Off the top of my head: Abdusattorov, Sarin, Firouzja, Keymer, Niemann, Yoo as well as Praggnanandhaa could all take down Magnus in a given blitz game, and have been strong enough to do so for several years. Rapid is definitely a tougher proposition, but most of them could steal the occasional round from Magnus there, too.

To be clear, Magnus is still one of the strongest, if not the strongest, players in the world at speed chess, but there's much more variability per game than in classical and at a given format (eg online 3+0, with premoves) probably he's edged out by any number of players.

[happytoexplain]

I'm confused - the parent is referring to a "did", but you said "could".

[tibbar]

For example, here's Nihal Sarin beating Magnus at a blitz game at 16 years old: https://www.chess.com/events/2021-magnus-carlsen-vs-challeng.... Sarin is currently rated #5 on the chess.com blitz leaderboard with an absurd rating of over 3100. Online speed chess is just a different animal - ratings are different, everyone plays lots more games, and even Magnus loses fairly often. These players are all rated high enough to be competitive with Magnus at certain speed time controls, which is my point.

[CaptainNegative]

And here's another example, with FM Yoav Milikow beating him on stream in 8 moves at either 15 or 16 years old (depending on Yoav's birth month). Speed chess is a different animal. https://youtu.be/mor6qpyT7jA

[bryan0]

Not sure why this is downvoted. This is news because he is the youngest player to beat magnus since he became world champ, and it was an excellent game to boot.

[Dlanv]

Yes. He even lost once in rapid to a person who was brand new to chess, if I recall correctly

[Davidzheng]

Lmao (obviously this never happened)

[8note]

Losing says nothing about the seriousness of the game

[throwaway5486nv]

How do we know either party is not using computer to make moves?