🇷🇺 Misha Osipov

Three years old, two draw offers

Channel One’s «Лучше всех!» (Best of All), Russia’s version of Little Big Shots, had been on air for exactly a week when its host, Maxim Galkin, introduced a three-year-old chess player from Moscow. Galkin joked that he himself could not play, so the show had found the boy a worthy opponent. Out walked Anatoly Karpov, world champion from 1975 to 1985, then 65 years old.

Misha Osipov had more time: ten minutes on his clock to Karpov’s two. He had told Karpov he had watched his games against Viktor Korchnoi. He thought long over each move while Karpov played quickly, and by the middlegame the clocks were level and Karpov was a pawn up. Karpov offered a draw. “Nyet,” said Misha. Karpov offered again and was refused again. Then the flag on the mechanical clock fell, after 17 moves by the game score agadmator’s Chess Channel published.

The boy shook hands and broke down, calling for his mother, who ran onto the stage. Karpov’s words to him, as translated by The Ringer, were gentle and exact: “You’ve lost on time. You had to accept the draw. Be more realistic about time.” Galkin gave him the show’s medal, Karpov signed a copy of his book for him — and minutes later, composed again, Misha solved three chess studies on air.

Why he cried

The tears were about confusion more than defeat. Misha trained on digital clocks and could not read the falling flag of the mechanical clock used on the show, his father, Yuri, later explained; he simply did not understand why the game was over. “He was upset and cried because he didn’t understand why he lost,” he told The Ringer.

Karpov, for his part, said the boy played like an adult in knowledge and understanding — extraordinary for his age. His mother, Ksenia, said Karpov had been right not to let him win.

How a two-year-old learns chess

He learned by watching. At about two he saw his father play his grandfather, started asking questions, and his parents taught him the moves; by two and a half he had joined a chess group run by the coach Ekaterina Popova. By three he knew notation and openings, Meduza reported, though he could not always pronounce their names; at home he studied recordings of historic games.

His favorite players, the Russian Chess Federation reported just before his fourth birthday, were Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen. His father told The Ringer he had no personal goals for his son: “I don’t have any personal aims or goals for him.”

A tour of champions

The show invited him back. On December 25, 2016, he played Sergey Karjakin, who had just contested the world championship match; after more than 30 moves Karjakin offered a draw, and this time Misha took it. In April 2017 he drew a game of Fischer Random chess with Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, then president of FIDE, on another Channel One show. At the opening of the FIDE Grand Prix in Moscow that May he played Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the head of the Republic of Ingushetia, won a knight, and offered a draw — which Yevkurov accepted, TASS reported, before handing him a toy tank and €1,000.

On August 29, 2017, at four, he beat Yuri Averbakh, then 95 and the world’s oldest grandmaster, in a fast game at Moscow’s Ostankino television center — an age gap of about 91 years. That same year he played the Russian under-9 championship at four, gained corporate sponsors, and was the subject of a long-read in The Ringer. The Guardian’s chess columnist ranked him second only to Karjakin among Russia’s best-known active players.

The final boss of chess

In February 2021 someone re-cut the 2016 broadcast so that Karpov’s entrance played to boss-fight music from the video game Dark Souls III. “Why do I hear boss music?” became a meme — the three-year-old as the unlucky player, the former world champion as the final boss. The original edit has more than 51 million YouTube views. In June 2021 Snoop Dogg shared it on Instagram. Across the uploads of the game and its edits, the moment has been watched more than 72 million times.

Where is Misha Osipov now?

He is 13 and still playing. The Russian Chess Federation’s rating list shows him competing steadily since December 2016 — more than a hundred rated events, with a string of first places including the Kosteniuk Cup for under-6 rapid players in 2019 — and still active in 2026. He last appeared on «Лучше всех!» in November 2021, at eight.

His ratings describe a strong club player rather than a future world champion. His first FIDE rating, in February 2023, was 1170; FIDE’s March 2024 rating reform lifted every rating below 2000. As of September 2026 he is rated 1543 in standard chess and 1654 in rapid, both marked inactive, and 1674 in blitz. He holds no FIDE title. For comparison, Argentina’s Faustino Oro, born nine months after Misha, qualified for the grandmaster title at twelve — a reminder of how differently early talent can unfold.