At an age where children are just learning to accomplish their daily tasks with the help of their parents and school teachers, we have Master Mithilesh Ranjithkumar here, who just 7 years old is winning accolades as a Junior Chess Master!

This 2nd standard student of Gulf Indian School - Fahaheel, Master Mithilesh, achieves great heights within 6 month when he first started learning the game. Today this Young Under-7 Chess player has achieved international rating in blitz and classic, where classic rating is 1222 and Blitz is 1241. He ranks 44 in the world, 20 in Asia and 3 in India. Attended many international tournaments, he was the best U-7 player in Athens of East 1st International Grand Master Open Chess Tournament held at Tamil Nadu and ranked 5th in August 2019. He has played in Bangkok international chess tournament 2019 and was awarded "The Best Youngest Player".

Under-7 tournament is the first stepping stone where a chess player is introduced to the game at a competition level. Chess needs a lot of concentration, strategic planning, thinking and tatics to play. All these abilities can be seen at a very young age in Mithilesh.

Believe it or not, Master Mithilesh started learning chess exactly six months back in Kuwait. He started learning Chess under Ms Valliammai Saravanan, FIDE Instructor & FIDE Arbiter, who is conducting regular chess classes at 'Gurukul, Salmiya', from past 6 months. "We have noticed that he always watched the game of chess in TV and try himself by jumping on the floors like chess moves. So we decided to teach him chess and enrolled him at Salmiya Gurukul," his proud mother Mrs Shanti, who is a housewife in Kuwait said. His father Mr Ranjithkumar is a Quality Engineer at Wood Company. They both hail from Tamilnadu in India.

Earlier he participated in Rapid chess Tournament in Kuwait which was conducted by Indiansinkuwait.com in Association with Kuwait Indian Chess Association (KICA). First tournament was held in November 2018 and the other in February 2019 at Gurukul, Salmiya. In both the Tournaments he was awarded "The Best Youngest Player".

Mithilesh also plays Blindfold chess. Blindfold chess is a form of chess play wherein the player do not see the positions of the pieces or touch them. This forces the player to maintain a mental model of the positions of the pieces. Moves are communicated via a recognized chess notation. This needs a lot of calculation/visualization and memory to play. Blindfold Chess is mainly played by players of 15 yrs of age and above. In a recent event at Gurukul Salmiya, Mithilesh successfully completed 15 moves in a Blindfold chess. "I imagine the Chess Board and the coins in my mind and memories the moves", he said.

Mithilesh hails from Tamilnadu, India. At this tender age, his parents are able to nurture his raw talent. Let us hope that it will transform him to achieve much bigger success.