Abhimanyu Mishra, 12, becomes youngest grandmaster in chess history | Hacker News Reader

Abhimanyu Mishra, 12, becomes youngest grandmaster in chess history

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> "Up until now I've been taking the calls, but once he becomes GM, he's free to choose what he wants to do with his life," Hemant says

I'm sure, I am going to get a lot of downvotes for this. Coming from an indian (south-east asian) family, I have experienced this first hand. Its really sad to see parents trying to live their lives through their kids.

We're talking about a twelve-year-old kid. I think it is common for a child of his age to follow his parents' instructions.

In many societies, it is common for kids to get some additional independence roughly around age thirteen, and it sounds like Abhimanyu Mishra is right on schedule.

>I think it is common for a child of his age to follow his parents' instructions.

True, but the parent should be making these decisions as a advocate for the child, and not looking at the child as a resource for their own benefit.

I get that this is not how it's always been done, but if you are lucky enough to live in a time and place where we don't need the labor of our direct children to survive (New Jersey 2021 counts IMO), then you have a duty to act (as best you can) as the child would if they had a fully developed sense of reason and self expression.

Personally, I would be thrilled if my father had supported my development into a grand master.

I think a counter argument could be that kids that young still don't know that much about the world and it's going to be a very hard thing to motivate yourself to become better at such a young age when you are already ahead of so many of your (offline) peers. Of course, this is offset by the internet, a bit, but it still seems a valid point to me.

How do you teach someone hard work and work ethic? I don't think many kids are willingly going to run themselves into the ground trying to become the best. Looking at my past, I kind of regret not being pushed further by my parents. I'm not some top achiever or anything like that, but I was good enough in the things I did (amongst the peers in my smallish town) that I could get away with the "I'm already better than X/Y, get off my back!"

Interesting you got that impression because this kid obviously seems insanely gifted, you can’t force or teach that. It sounds like his father is more like his manager as others have said.

This echoes what we saw with Magnus Carlsen where his dad basically made Carlsen’s career his full time job (based on clips I saw about Carlsen as a kid)

Are you kidding me? Are you implying this kid just got to this point by not training/being taught? Of course he must have been insanely pushed by his parents no matter his talent. Even suggesting this is humanly possible without anyone teaching or forcing him to train is ludicrous.

No, I'm saying exactly the opposite. I'm saying that there's no way this kid just got there because his dad wants him to.

Almost anyone who is world class at anything usually has that potent combination of innate talent AND insanely hard work.

I agree with this take. If anything, I think the father should be applauded for helping him access the opportunities that have helped him reach his potential, because it's clear the kid has the discipline and drive to be great.

But that doesn't disqualify the option of the kid not really enjoying it as much as you would expect from a GM. How many other sports players have we seen where it is evident how much talent they got, but don't really work because they care about other things more. Latest example could be NBA's Ben Simmons who everyone touts as a very talented and gifted guy, but he just doesn't seem to work on his skillset in the summer like other players do. And it really hit him these playoffs.

Another example could be Britney Spears. She was on top of the world in the 2000s but it all seems like it was mostly her father's command. Not that I think she dislikes making music, I think she dislikes the things she has done as a pop star as a whole, but she was forced to by a parent (to the point where she has no control over her body)

Plenty of parents push their kids, but due to luck or natural talent most won't make it. In a lot of ways this kid was just insanely lucky

Sure. I think the first words of Andre Agassi's autobiography was something like "I hate Tennis."

That has to be one of my favorite book openings of all time.

I agree, this is abuse.

Very interesting player, looking at a few of his wins it seems like he often emulates the Carlsen water-from-a-stone style of grinding out "boring", equal endgames until his opponent cracks. A young player with the willingness to study technique and endgame fundamentals to this level is extremely rare -- it will be interesting to watch his growth and see if he burns out like many of the other prodigies like Negi or Joshua Waitzkin or if he intends to join the ranks of the super GMs [0].

[0] 2700chess.com

Well sometimes these young players don't have the "willingness" as much as they are railroaded into doing it and "burning out" is just standing up for themselves as they become adults.

What a shame, being made to live someone else's dream and have no childhood

His father sounds like his manager. Something tells me that somewhere in the future there's going to be a rude awakening.

> His father sounds like his manager.

Welcome to life of an Asian parent

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