Blindfolded Chess Wizard Sets The Record

Pulse

oi-Suparna Chakaraborthy

By Suparna Chakaraborthy

Tuesday, April 27, 2010, 15:26

The twelve year old chess prodigy, Raghav Srivastava, has set not one but five new records in the Limca Book of Records. What makes this achievement even specials is that he played the game blindfolded.

Raghav Srivastava played five rounds of chess blindfolded from start to finish to create new records and won through all the difficulty levels.

In the first round, the panel consisted of three Grandmasters, Pravin Thipsay, Sriram Jha and S.Vijayalakshmi, a referee, V V R Murthy, and the assistant Editor of Limca Book of Records. The panel chose one of the 24 shortlisted games. The games played by the young wonder, were the one's which have been played by the likes of Viswanathan Anand, Paul Morphy, Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and Alexander Alekhine.

In the next round, the panel witnessed the blindfolded chess whizard, play a reverse game, from start to finish. Raghav also payed against an opponent, who spoke out his moves to the kid.

Raghav claims to have selected game by memory, from beginning to end.

"I am very happy and thankful to Limca World Records and GMR (Indian infrastructure developer), and all the grandmasters and all the members present here…thank you. My inspiration is (chess-player) Viswanathan Anand and (former President of India) Abdul Kalam. My aim is to become a world champion and scientist," said Raghav Srivastava.

Raghav Srivastava, much deservingly grabbed the praises of the panel members. "Well, definitely this is a record of a kind. During such a record in such an age, I think he is extremely talented in his memory. All I would like to say, that I would like to see him on chessboard, playing chess for India because that way we can see another Viswanathan Anand in the making because he has an amazing memory," said Vijaya Lakshmi Subbaraman, chess grandmaster.

Chess champions are happy to see the next budding chess master all ready to hit it to the national level. The young minds of India seem to be on the road to success.