Tamizh Amudhan and Vincent Keymer CHENNAI: Rain lashed Thiruthangal, a district in Sivakasi, throughout Friday night. Electricity was cut from six o’clock in the evening, plunging the area into darkness. But inside one of the modest houses, an eight-year-old boy, candles flickering beside him and a mobile flashlight illuminating his laptop screen, was signed up for the Freestyle Friday online chess championship.At the other end of Tamizh Amudhan’s resolution, in all the ambient lighting that the first world brings, was world number 7 Vincent Keymer with an ELO rating of 2759.Balancing on his lap and playing with black, Tamizh stunned the 21-year-old German in the opening round of Freestyle Friday, a popular weekly 11-round Swiss-format blitz event featuring multiple title players. Tamizh was able to play four more rounds, winning two, before his laptop battery finally died.World number one in the under-9 category — in February he became the youngest player to break the Elo 2000+ threshold — Tamizh hails from Kallakurichi. For the past year, he has been living in a rented house in Thiruthangal, 350 km away, to avoid long journeys and train regularly at the Hatsun Chess Academy, located in a temple-to-industrial town.Speaking to TOI, Tamizh’s father Sathish Arumugam explained how they improvised in the dark and used their phone’s hotspot and mobile data to stay online.“We came back from Hatsun Academy around 6 pm when the power went out due to heavy rain. The tournament was at 8 pm and the laptop only had about 48% charge left. So we knew it could handle three or four games,” said Sathish.Sathish revealed that his son was undeterred by the situation. “Tamizh still wanted to play, the power outage didn’t bother him at all. He said he would play as many games as possible until the battery died.”“He loves to blitz. And to beat a player like Vincent Keymer – with just 14 seconds left while Tamizh had about a minute, it felt really good. All the hard work and effort we put in, it was good to see the result,” added a proud Sathish.“It’s a very happy feeling. No, I wasn’t worried when the power went on,” Tamizh said before returning to watch the IPL match between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians.The youngster started playing chess at the age of four and his family sacrificed a lot to support his journey. His parents take turns staying with him in Thiruthangal, nearly 350 kilometers from home, to ensure that he can train without interruption.Over the past year, Tamizh has built an impressive record by winning four silver medals and a bronze at the 27th Asian Youth Chess Championship 2025. We also now know that rain and thunder cannot stop him.
