Villa de Benasque Open

[Colin Patterson]

A creditable 7.5/10 for GM Stephen Gordon, but another result catches the eye also ...

Sohum Lohia ENG, born 2009 - 5.5/10, gaining 119 Elo points

That beats WGM Jana Bellin's result (5/10), and looks like an extraordinary score for a 10 year old.
Unexpected? Or is he already on the rapid improvers radar?

[Leonard Barden]

A creditable 7.5/10 for GM Stephen Gordon, but another result catches the eye also ...

Sohum Lohia ENG, born 2009 - 5.5/10, gaining 119 Elo points

That beats WGM Jana Bellin's result (5/10), and looks like an extraordinary score for a 10 year old.
Unexpected? Or is he already on the rapid improvers radar?

Sohum Lohia is originally from Singapore, and was British U8 co-champion in 2017.

It is only in the the last few weeks that his results have really taken off.

His July Fide rating was 1717. But then in the Pula, Croatia, Open in late June he scored 2.5/7 against a 1977 field, gaining 44 Fide points.

So with the 119 Fide points just gained from Villa de Benasque, his August Fide rating will jump 163 points to around 1880. This would put him in around the world top 25 for players born in 2009. Shreyas Royal, currently playing top board for England U12s in the European teams, is ranked No7.

At Villa de Benasque, Sohum Lohia began with two defeats against a 2188 and 1961, then beat a 1300.

In the final seven rounds he scored an unbeaten 4.5/7 against a 1980 field, that's a TPR of 2080. In the final two rounds he drew with 2100s.

That's a real quantum jump, such as we saw from our very best juniors in the golden 1970s but hardly at all since David Howell in the late 1990s.

My suggestion for junior director Alex and for Peter Wells: put him on the Accelerator Programme pronto.

[Colin Patterson]

Thanks Leonard.

That's very interesting.

Both FIDE and the Chess-Results website have him down as LOHIA though, so I'm surprised you know him by a different name. Perhaps just a translation hiccup? If Olympiu Urcan reads this, he may be able to put us straight.

[Matt Bridgeman]

Aren't his parent's multi-millionaires, who had GM Jonathan Hawkins travelling everywhere with him as his personal coach, until letting him go because they felt his results weren't improving fast enough?

[Leonard Barden]

Thanks Leonard.

That's very interesting.

Both FIDE and the Chess-Results website have him down as LOHIA though, so I'm surprised you know him by a different name. Perhaps just a translation hiccup? If Olympiu Urcan reads this, he may be able to put us straight.

Oops! My lousy handwriting. Corrected to Lohia now.

[Leonard Barden]

Aren't his parent's multi-millionaires, who had GM Jonathan Hawkins travelling everywhere with him as his personal coach, until letting him go because they felt his results weren't improving fast enough?

I've been given similar information from another source since I wrote, and I also understand that earlier this year he has had serious coaching from RB Ramesh in India and from David Howell.

It is true that the most successful 9-10 year-olds achieve much better than 2000-2100 which at the moment is the level for Shreyas Royal and Sohum Lohia. Nodirbek Abdusattorov defeated grandmasters at nine, Vincent Keymer scored his first IM norm at around 10 years 5 months, and Praggnanandhaa achieved the IM title before he was 11.

[Nigel White]

He is obviously improving rapidly. I've played him a few times in the past couple of years or so and have had no problems. Now way above my grade, so unlikely I'll be playing him again.

[Nigel White]

[
He has not played in England since the London Classic in December 2018, but has competed in Europe,
.

I've seen him at some games in England in 2019. Most memorably in the London League when Battersea put out a youth team to play the Galacticos of Wood Green

[LawrenceCooper]

[
He has not played in England since the London Classic in December 2018, but has competed in Europe,
.

I've seen him at some games in England in 2019. Most memorably in the London League when Battersea put out a youth team to play the Galacticos of Wood Green

It's easy enough to check the grading database to see that he has played in three rapidplays in England in 2019, one in January, one in March and one in May. http://ecfgrading.org.uk/new/menu.php?f ... radeType=R

[Leonard Barden]

Okay, but these are all very mediocre results, making his huge performance jump at Pula and Benasque in the last three weeks a still more striking contrast.

It's like he suddenly started performing 200-300 Fide points higher than previously.

It will be interesting to see what happens in his next event, wherever it is.