12 Year Boy Become Youngest Grandmaster in Chess History

Abhimanyu Mishra became the youngest chess Grandmaster in history when the 12-year 4-month 25-days boy from New Jersey scored his 3rd GM norm in Budapest having already crossed the required 2500 ELO Rating and became the youngest GM in chess history. To become a grandmaster, a player must score three GM norms and touch an Elo rating of 2500 and above. This can be awarded only in tournaments where at least 50% of the opponents are titleholders, and at least one-third of the players are Grand Masters. 

    Before Abhimanyu, this record was registered on the name of Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin who scored his GM norm at the age of 12-year 7 months. This record stood for 20 years but was successfully broken by Indian-origin American boy Abhimanyu Mishra. After Sergey Karjakin lost his youngest GM title, he told chess.com in a conversation that “Somehow I am quite philosophic about this because I felt like it has been almost 20 years and it ly 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.” 

 Abhimanyu started playing chess at the age of 2.5 years and soon he became the highest Under 9 player in the world. He was also invited by the Garry Kasparov chess foundation for an intensive three-day assessment in November 2018. He was the youngest of the flock of players who were invited and among the handful picked for the Young Stars program. In chase of the GM title, Abhimanyu and his father have been camping in Budapest since April this year he scored both GM norms there. His final norm arrived after a win over the Indian GM Leon Mendonca with black pieces at the Vezerkepzo GM mix on Wednesday in his final tournament opportunity in the Hungarian capital before he travels to Sochi for the Fide World Cup. 

After winning his GM norm he said “My ultimate goal is to win the world chess championship but my next intermediate goal is to became the super grandmaster in the next three years”. In an interview, he also said that his parents helped him for achieving this milestone. His father always wanted that his son avoids the trend of getting addicted to phones or tablets. Hemant Mishra, Abhimanyu's father, was aware that toddlers were getting drawn into the virtual world and he wanted his son to do something better in his life. His father said in an interview that "We started way back when he was 2 years and 8 months. The idea was to introduce this Roya Game to him. We preferred him spending time on this game, rather than working on his phone or iPad because, at that time, I saw many kids who were addicted to that,".  

He started taking part in competitions at the age of five and his family decided to help him grow as a professional chess player. Abhimanyu gets great coaches like Grandmaster Arun Prasad Subramaniam and Grandmaster Mahesh who train him to be a great chess player. Abhimanyu achieved lots in his 10-year chess career. In Budapest, he made history by defeating 15-year-old Indian Grandmaster Leon Mendonca at the Vezerkepzo GM mix tournament and became the youngest Grandmaster in the world.