No power, no problem: Eight-year-old Tamizh Amudhan stuns World No. 7 Keymer by candlelight

Some stories do not need a grand stage. Sometimes, they begin in a quiet room, with rain beating down outside, the power out, and an eight-year-old refusing to let the moment pass.

On Friday evening in Sivakasi, as heavy rain and strong winds lashed the town, Tamizh Amudhan sat in candlelight with a laptop placed on a pillow on his lap. Across the board, online, was German Grandmaster and World No. 7 Vincent Keymer. A little later, Tamizh had beaten him with the black pieces in the Freestyle Friday online tournament.

“It was raining very heavily with winds. He came back from chess coaching only around 6:30 p.m. and was drenched. He freshened up and insisted that he wanted to play, despite the electricity being out and internet issues,” his father Sathish Arumugam told Sportstar.

The image of Tamizh playing by candlelight was striking. It was not a polished tournament hall or a carefully arranged setting, but it said enough about the youngster’s appetite for the game. There was no complaint about the conditions, only the urge to play.

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Tamizh handled the game with black impressively. In the later stages, he turned an active rook endgame into a king hunt. Keymer’s exposed king became the target as Tamizh kept finding checks, improved his rook activity and used his queenside pawn push to decide the game.

Tamizh Amudhan (bottom right) was awarded a scholarship of Rs 50,000 by the Tamil Nadu Sports Journalists Association earlier this year.
| Photo Credit:
JAYANTHO SENGUPTA

Online wins against elite players do not carry the weight of classical tournament results but for young players, they can be deeply significant. In 2022, R. Praggnanandhaa’s win over World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen in an online rapid game at the Airthings Masters became an important marker in his rise. For Tamizh, beating a player of Keymer’s stature could serve a similar purpose in confidence, if not yet in scale.

Freestyle Friday is a weekly online blitz tournament played with a time control of three minutes plus a two-second increment. It follows an 11-round Swiss format and attracts several titled players.

“He had defeated two other Grandmasters in the past, but beating Vincent was a big deal. It was free entry, but there was prize money of about 1000 dollars. He could play only four rounds and won two, after which the laptop shut down,” Sathish said.

According to Sathish, Tamizh had been playing online events before travelling for tournaments, but did not often get paired against stronger players earlier because he did not have a title. After earning the Candidate Master title in February 2026, he began getting opportunities to face higher-rated opponents.

Tamizh has already built a reputation in his age group. He leads the world rankings in the under-nine category and is the youngest player in the world to cross the 2000 Elo mark, achieving the feat at the age of eight.

He also won a Maruti Suzuki car for his impressive 8.5/9 performance at the Athens of the East Tournament and was awarded a scholarship of Rs 50,000 by the Tamil Nadu Sports Journalists Association earlier this year.

Published on May 02, 2026