Chess Prodigies and Mini-Grandmasters
April 11th, 2008 by psport 49 viewsChild prodigies are a well-known phenomenon in chess, which is one of the few sports or intellectual activities where children can compete with adults on equal ground (another is computer games). The great Capablanca learned the game at four, and was one of the strongest players in Cuba in his early teens. Samuel Reshevsky also started at four and was giving simultaneous exhibitions at six.
Below are the compiled list of the youngest grandmasters in history. In the future we may be updating this list, as new GMs under 15 years of age emerge.
Youngest grandmasters in history
|
No.
|
Player |
Nat.
|
years
|
months
|
days
|
year
|
|
1
|
Sergey Karjakin |
UKR
|
12
|
7
|
0
|
2002
|
|
2
|
Parimarjan Negi | IND | 13 | 3 | 22 | 2006 |
|
3
|
Magnus Carlsen |
NOR
|
13
|
3
|
27
|
2004
|
|
4
|
Bu Xiangzhi |
CHN
|
13
|
10
|
13
|
1999
|
|
5
|
Teimour Radjabov |
AZE
|
14
|
0
|
14
|
2001
|
|
6
|
Ruslan Ponomaryov |
UKR
|
14
|
0
|
17
|
1997
|
|
7
|
Wesley So |
PHI
|
14
|
1
|
28
|
2007
|
|
8
|
Etienne Bacrot |
FRA
|
14
|
2
|
0
|
1997
|
|
9
|
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave |
FRA
|
14
|
4
|
0
|
2005
|
|
10
|
Peter Leko |
HUN
|
14
|
4
|
22
|
1994
|
|
11
|
Yuri Kuzubov |
UKR
|
14
|
7
|
12
|
2004
|
|
12
|
Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son |
VIE
|
14
|
10
|
0
|
2004
|
|
13
|
Fabiano Caruana |
ITA
|
14
|
11
|
20
|
2007
|
|
14
|
Koneru Humpy |
IND
|
15
|
1
|
27
|
2002
|
|
15
|
Hikaru Nakamura |
USA
|
15
|
2
|
19
|
2003
|
|
16
|
Pentala Harikrishna |
IND
|
15
|
3
|
5
|
2001
|
|
17
|
Judit Polgar |
HUN
|
15
|
4
|
28
|
1991
|
|
18
|
Alejandro Ramirez |
CRI
|
15
|
5
|
14
|
2003
|
|
19
|
Bobby Fischer |
USA
|
15
|
6
|
1
|
1958
|
via: ChessBase
14-year-old Filipino is newest grandmaster | PINOYSPORTS in April 22nd, 2008 at 10:10 pm-
[...] his GM requirements on December 7, 2007. Thus when FIDE convenes next year; he would become the seventh youngest chess player to achieve the grandmaster title in chess history. Oh yeah, he is not a Chinese or a Russian, nor [...]