Source: Chess.com
PeterDoggers
IM Abhimanyu Mishra became the youngest chess grandmaster in history today. The 12-year-old player from New Jersey scored his third GM norm in Budapest, having already crossed the required 2500 Elo rating barrier.
Mishra (often called “Abhi”) broke GM Sergey Karjakin‘s record that has stood for 19 years. On August 12, 2002, Karjakin, a world championship challenger in 2016, secured the grandmaster title at the age of 12 years and seven months. Mishra, born on February 5, 2009, took 12 years, four months, and 25 days to obtain the highest title in chess.
Karjakin told Chess.com:
Somehow I am quite philosophic 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 will 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.
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.
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.
—Sergey Karjakin
Mishra spent several months in Budapest, Hungary playing back-to-back tournaments, chasing the title and the record. He scored both his first and second GM norms there, at the April Vezerkepzo tournament and the May 2021 First Saturday tournament, both round-robins of 10 players specially set up for scoring norms.
He couldn’t immediately follow it up in his next three tournaments in the Hungarian capital, which basically started every two weeks: the May and June Vezerkepzo and the June First Saturday round-robins, held in the same playing hall.
However, in his final attempt this month, he succeeded. As several chess players stayed in Budapest for this long period, the organizers created one last event, this time a Swiss group called the Vezerkepzo GM Mix. Having been invited to the FIDE World Cup in Sochi, Mishra knew this was going to be his last chance before leaving Hungary.
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