Meet Jiaana Garg, 5YO Becomes Youngest Girl With FIDE Chess Rating

Jiaana Garg is a 5-year-old chess star from Chandigarh, who got her International Chess Federation (FIDE) rating of 1558 on May 1, 2024. She is the only female player in the world to get a rating at this young age, according to Hindustan Times. The little girl was inspired by her gold-winning chess player brother and started professional training at the Chandigarh Chess Association when she was 4 years old. Her mentor Naveen Bansal expressed that Garg has been the youngest player he has ever trained in his 15-year-long career.

Meet Jiaana Garg: 5-Year-Old Chess Genius

Jiaana Garg has been playing chess for just over a year and has already participated in multiple tournaments. Mentor Naveen Bansal told Punjab News Express, "At first, I refused to start with her as usually we don’t take children less than the age of 5. But her mother sent me a video just to convince me that she is disciplined and can focus on chess class."

A few months into training, she was already promoted to the advanced batch. "By looking at her pickup and dedication, for experiment’s sake, we put her in our most advanced batch just so she could listen to my lectures. We realised she started responding at par with other children who were all rated and were much older than her age," Bansal said.

Her coach also spoke about the role of the family in enriching a child chess player. Bansal told the outlet, "It is important to mention that the role of her mother Priyanka Garg was remarkable. Without the role of the parent, no coach in the world can make a child of her age anything at the world level. It’s always a coordination of the parent, coach and child.” 

Jiaana Garg has participated in multiple tournaments including the Matrix Cup International Open Fide Rated Chess Tournament 2024, National Under-11 Girls Chess Championship-2023, 1st Matrix Cup International Open Fide Rating Chess Tournament 2023, and 1st Late Shri Dhiraj Singh Raghuvanshi Memorial Open Fide Rating Tournament 2023.