Murugan Thiruchelvam

Murugan Thirumurugan Thiruchelvam (born 11 December 1989) is an English chess player. He was England's youngest player ever to gain an international chess rating (2020 at the age of nine).

Having just passed his tenth birthday, he played against the then world champion Garry Kasparov in a simultaneous exhibition. Kasparov singled out his game against Murugan as the best of that day, and was very impressed by the strategic understanding of the youngster.

Like Viswanathan Anand, Murugan is of Sri Lankan descent and coincidentally, they share the same birthday.

Murugan continued to improve rapidly, reaching 2269 Elo on FIDE's published rating list before the age of twelve. Thereafter, he played only infrequently and by 2003, had halted his chess playing activities altogether.