Mumbai: Age is just a number they said and it’s the same even in case of young Tvesha Ashish Jain, who recently secured a podium finish at the prestigious Maharashtra State Chess Championship. A trainee at the South Mumbai Chess Academy (SMCA), the prodigy bagged bronze in the under-8 category, which finished last week in Pune. Jain competed in the tournament which had 60 other participants but she managed to make her way to the podium, an early testament to her growing skill as a prodigy in the sport.
Starting off the two-day competition on a high, the seven-year-old won all four games on the first day. On the second, she managed to win two out of two, her defeats coming against eventual gold and silver medal winners.
Her introduction to the sport came way back at a tender age of three when her parents started playing the game. Gradually she took a liking to it and has never looked back. “After having played for the first 8-9 months, we started taking her for tournaments in the under 5 category. That’s how we noticed her potential. She has participated in around 50 competitions and won 36 of them so far at just seven years of age!” Veeresh Tammireddy, her coach at SMCA since the age of three, said.
Her recent accolades also include winning bronze at the Under-8 Youth Chess championship held online by Sri Lanka. “When I started teaching her, I found that she was extremely composed and focused at such a young age. We gave her more training and took her to many tournaments when I noticed this attribute of hers,” Tammireddy shared, adding, “Her next target are two competitions—National School Championships in Bhuvneshwar and Asian School Championships in Sri Lanka this year.”
Young Tvesha, a student at the Green Lawns High School, has five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen as her idol and one day, she aims to better the Norwegian stalwart. Her coach envisions a very bright future for her. “Her goal is to become a women’s grandmaster at 12 years of age. She still has five years for that and we are working hard. She will be one of the best players in the coming years,” he said.
