What is possible

There are lessons in chess that cannot be learned from a book. One lands, from time to time, in a position which amounts to a trial by fire – a test of conviction as much as skill. The experience of such a game can stay with you for ever, radically altering your sense of what is possible at the chessboard.

At least, I suspect that is what 13-year-old Shreyas Royal went through last month, when he faced the Georgian grandmaster Baadur Jobava in the first round of the European Individual Championship in Slovenia. Jobava’s peak rating placed him in the world’s top 20, so this was a David and Goliath pairing where at the outset the youngster had nothing to lose. Jobava is a brilliant player – sometimes a little too brilliant – and in this game he was moved to sacrifice a whole rook in the early middlegame. The concept was clear – Royal stood to be checkmated down the h-file unless he ran the gauntlet with his king, venturing into the middle of the board.