12-year-old American becomes youngest ever chess grandmaster

Previous record held by Russian Sergey Karjakin for 19 years

American 12 year old becomes youngest grandmaster (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

An 12-year-old boy from New Jersey has become the world’s youngest chess grandmaster.

Abhimanyu Mishra set a new mark at a tournament in Budapest, Hungary, at the age of 12 years, four months and 25 days old.

He beat Russian Sergey Karjakin’s previous record, which had stood for 19 years, of 12 years and seven months, by 66 days.

To earth title of grandmaster a chess player must achieve three “grandmaster norms”, awards given for  top level performances in tournaments.

They must also achieve a 2500 Elo rating, which is handed out by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs, the game’s governing body.

Abhimanyu defeated grandmaster Leon Mendonca at his latest tournament to secure his third “norm”, having earned two over the last few months.

“Finally checkmated the biggest opponent (ongoing pandemic) which stopped me for 14 months. Thanks everybody for all your love and support. Looking forward for World cup,” he posted on Twitter.

The youngster is no stranger to breaking chess records, as at the age of just seven he became the United States Chess Federation’s youngest Expert level player.

He then became the youngest National Master at nine, and the youngest ever International Master at ten years, nine months and 20 days old.

(Photo by Justin N. Lane, jnlane.com/Courtesy of US Chess.)

“Somehow I am quite philosophical about this because I felt like it has been almost 20 years and it is really too much! It had to be broken. Sooner or later I was sure that it would happen. I was completely sure that one of the Indian guys would do it much earlier. Somehow I was very lucky that it didn’t happen,” Mr Karjakin told Chess.com.

“Yes, I am a little sad that I lost the record, I don’t want to lie, but at the same time I can only congratulate him and it’s no problem. I hope that he will go on to become one of the top chess players and it will be just a nice start to his big career. I wish him all the best.”