Meet the Central Texas 10-year-old who will beat you at chess, even if you're really good

CEDAR PARK, Texas (KXAN) — When 10-year-old Advik Manchanda gets home from school, two hours of online chess is normal.

From online to in-house, Manchanda often spends time at home playing games against his family. He also meets with his coach in India over Zoom as part of his routine.

It's fair to say — Manchanda is practicing chess a lot.

Unbeknownst to me, this is what I walked into when I headed to Manchanda's Cedar Park home to meet the chess prodigy who'd just accomplished something no other Texas child had.

I entered past a large dining room sideboard where space was at a premium — covered by 35 trophies and 27 medals, shouting out to me, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

We had planned to play chess while conducting the interview. Already my expectations were lowered to simply trying not to embarrass myself.

Manchanda greeted me alongside his parents and sister, Annika, then pulled out his chess board. The game and our chat were on.

"I started playing chess with my mom," Manchanda said. "I was six. I wasn't having fun right away, because I usually lost some games. It made me feel sad."

Four years later, he's having plenty of fun. All that practice turned into tournaments, which turned into wins, titles and championships.

To help find kids his age to compete against, the family started traveling around, not just Texas, but the country one to two times a month.

"At the beginning, usually I'm stressed," Manchanda said. "Who am I gonna play? Is he going to be higher than me, lower than me? But as I went on, I didn't really care who I was playing against."

In December, he pulled off his biggest win yet after flying to Maryland for the 2024 K-12 National Chess Championship.

Following seven games, Advik was the last fourth grader standing, earning a medal, ranking points, bragging rights and recognition from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who issued a proclamation celebrating the win.

Manchanda came home as the only Texan to win in the tournament.

"It was pretty special," he said.

His current U.S. Chess Federation ranking of 1975 deems him an expert. He's in the top 2% of all competitive Texas players, adults included.

His love for the centuries-old game comes as chess experiences a renaissance. In 2023 Chess.com said it had more than 57 million active monthly users, up 550% from January 2020.

That growth is also seen at the Cedar Park Library, where Manchanda spends his weekends without tournaments staying sharp by playing games against dozens of other kids as part of a program called Kids Chess Open Play.

Program organizer Sergio Longoria said the game's popularity exploded during the pandemic, and then afterward when people wanted to play in person.

"A lot of people came into chess by being online," Longoria said. "When that stopped, then they wanted to play with other people."

Manchanda's most high-profile match came last year against Grandmaster Hans Niemann, who's ranked among the top 20 players in the world.

In video of the tune-up event before a Dallas tournament, Neimann and Manchanda can be heard introducing themselves. Afterward, the 21-year-old Neimann seems impressed, asking Manchanda again for his name while declaring, "You're very talented. You're very good."

Manchanda went on to win his section in that tournament, which included a nearly $3,200 prize.

If you're wondering how I fared in the games against Manchanda, there's a reason I've waited this long to tell you. We played three, and they weren't particularly close.

Manchanda rated me as a three on a scale from one to 10 and told me his six-year-old sister could likely beat me. She's ranked ninth in the country for girls her age.

Long term, he hopes to earn an invitation to the All-America Chess Team and eventually become a grandmaster.

"Then I want to become the youngest world champion," he said.

Until then he's happy to keep adding to the trophy shelf and offer pointers to amateurs, like me.