Ok, I'll be that guy. Yes, the kid actually did win all these matches. Though it's not clear whether the old guys were masters, grandmasters, or just old.
"Twenty graybeards sitting in a square played chess yesterday in Paris against a very small boy 8 years old, and he beat them all. Among the graybeards were some of the best players in France, and one at least, whose boast it is that he drew with Capablanca, the Pan-American chess champion..."
He should have put them in a circle and mimiced the moves of the masters cross from each other, in other words, make them play against each other instead