For a boy knocking on the doors of history, Faustino Oro is remarkably nonchalant about the pressures of expectations that come along with being too good too early in his career. Having ticked off his first Grand Master norm and crossed the 2500 rating threshold a fortnight ago at the Legends & Prodigies tournament in Madrid, Oro finds himself just two norms away from being the youngest grandmaster in history, a record which currently belongs to Indian-origin prodigy Abhimanyu Mishra.

Oro still has five months to break Mishra’s record. The chase of becoming the youngest Grand Master in history has infamously been known to do strange things to the form of prodigies in the past. But Oro dismisses any talk of pressure with a shrug and a smile.

While speaking to The Indian Express from his home in Badalona, Oro said, “There is no pressure about the record. Like I say in all my interviews, I try to play my best chess and enjoy chess. For me, it’s a sport.”

The 12-year-old prodigy added, “I am not focusing on the record of being the youngest grandmaster in history. I will try to do that, obviously. But I am more focused on playing my style of chess and trying to improve a bit more every day. And well, if I improve a bit more each day, the grandmaster title will appear.”

Oro was introduced to chess by his father at the age of six, Alejandro, to prevent the restless boy of six from kicking the football against walls for hours at a stretch while they were in COVID lockdown. In these six years, he’s already become the world’s youngest international master (a record now broken), the youngest player ever to cross 2500 rating, and the second youngest to earn a Grandmaster norm. He’s also defeated players like Magnus Carlsen thrice, and Hikaru Nakamura in online games besides playing against five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand in exhibition games.