12-Year-Old Kid Makes History As Youngest Chess Grandmaster
— 9 July 2021

12-Year-Old Kid Makes History As Youngest Chess Grandmaster

— 9 July 2021
Garry Lu
WORDS BY
Garry Lu

Abhimanyu Mishra has become history’s youngest chess grandmaster at the tender age of 12 years and four months. The New Jersey native managed to earn the 2,500 ELO tournament rating required by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) after defeating grandmaster Leon Mendonca at the Vezerkepzo GM Mix last week, thereby obtaining the missing component of the necessary grandmaster “norms.” Which certainly isn’t a bad way to commemorate his first decade spent hustling in this multi-faceted game of high-order strategy.

“The match against Leon was tough, but a mistake from his end was all that I needed to cross the landmark,” explains Mishra.

“I feel relieved and happy to be able to achieve this feat.”

Mishra was in danger of missing his window, but a well-time decision to relocate the entire family to Hungary by his father Hemant gave him a fighting chance. There, the pre-teen prodigy has been in “continuous action” since April, racking up the Ws, and breaking past the 2,500 overall rating. Played virtually non-stop for weeks on end with a day’s break between tournaments at most, this is certainly well deserved. Although you could also argue this was earned the moment he began moving the pieces around in earnest at the barely-sentient age of two.

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Of course, this isn’t exactly the first history-making honour achieved by Abhimanyu Mishra. At age seven, he was already the United States Chess Federation’s youngest expert. By the time he turned nine, he was the youngest national chess master. And less than two years after at the age of 10 years and nine months, Mishra secured the honour of youngest international chess master in history.

The title of youngest chess grandmaster in history was previouly held by Sergey Karjakin for almost 20 years. While Karjakin has expressed feeling “a little sad” about being narrowly beaten by just three months, he was still expressed full support for Mishra’s latest accomplishment.

“Somehow, I am quite [philosophical] about this because I felt like it has been almost 20 years and it is really too much,” says Karjakin.

“It had to be broken sooner or later. I was sure one of the Indian guys would do it much earlier, and I was lucky that it didn’t happen.”

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Garry Lu
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After stretching his legs with companies such as The Motley Fool and the odd marketing agency, Garry joined Boss Hunting in 2019 as a fully-fledged Content Specialist. In 2021, he was promoted to News Editor. Garry proudly retains a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, black bruises from Muay Thai, as well as a black belt in all things pop culture. Drop him a line at [email protected]

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