Here is the list of the youngest GMs in the world according to Chessbase:
No. | Player | Nat. | years | months | days | year |
1 | Sergey Karjakin | UKR | 12 | 7 | 0 | 2002 |
2 | Parimarjan Negi | |
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3 | Magnus Carlsen | NOR | 13 | 3 | 27 | 2004 |
4 | Bu Xiangzhi | CHN | 13 | 10 | 13 | 1999 |
5 | Richard Rapport | HUN | 13 | 11 | 15 | 2010 |
6 | Teimour Radjabov | AZE | 14 | 0 | 14 | 2001 |
7 | Ruslan Ponomaryov | UKR | 14 | 0 | 17 | 1997 |
8 | Wesley So | PHI | 14 | 1 | 28 | 2007 |
9 | Etienne Bacrot | FRA | 14 | 2 | 0 | 1997 |
10 | Jorge Cori | PER | 14 | 2 | 0 | 2009 |
11 | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | FRA | 14 | 4 | 0 | 2005 |
12 | Peter Leko | HUN | 14 | 4 | 22 | 1994 |
13 | Hou Yifan | CHN | 14 | 6 | 2 | 2008 |
14 | Anish Giri | RUS | 14 | 7 | 2 | 2009 |
15 | Yuri Kuzubov | UKR | 14 | 7 | 12 | 2004 |
16 | Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | VIE | 14 | 10 | 0 | 2004 |
17 | Ray Robson | USA | 14 | 11 | 16 | 2009 |
18 | Fabiano Caruana | ITA | 14 | 11 | 20 | 2007 |
19 | Koneru Humpy | IND | 15 | 1 | 27 | 2002 |
20 | Hikaru Nakamura | USA | 15 | 2 | 19 | 2003 |
21 | Pentala Harikrishna | IND | 15 | 3 | 5 | 2001 |
22 | Judit Polgar | HUN | 15 | 4 | 28 | 1991 |
23 | Alejandro Ramirez | CRI | 15 | 5 | 14 | 2003 |
24 | Bobby Fischer | USA | 15 | 6 | 1 | 1958 |
Next to make this list is probably Ilya Nyzhnik.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
He will pass Leko by next year.
Robson will be the best from this group.
No Russians in these field of prodigies?
Is this the age at which they met the requirements, or the age at which they were awarded the title at the FIDE Congress?
It’s quite interesting how even though the list gets longer every year, it always for some reason ends with Fischer. In 5 years Susan will be posting a list that has 50 names (ending, of course, with Fischer).
neither. for example, Cori is not yet awarded the title and he only passed the requirements in 2010.
Rapport came out of nowhere for me. I’d heard of Nyzhnik long before him.
Anish Giri is Russian.
The ‘grandmaster’ title has come to mean different degrees of mastery over the years. When Fischer became a grandmaster, he was already well within the top few dozen players in the world.
Today, a new GM is just about 2500 ELO strength, which puts him/her maybe within the top 500 in the world. That’s still an amazing accomplishment, especially for a 13 or 14 year old, but it’s not necessarily the same as grandmasters of old.
How old was Dariusz Swiercz of Poland when he earned the title?
A 36-year gap between Fischer in 1958 and Leko in 1994. That shows how much harder it was to become a GM in those days.
There were 55 GMs when Fischer and two others got the title in 1958.
It would be interesting to put together a tournament with all these – minus Fischer of course – maybe dedicated to his memory.
Rapport has never reached 2500 and is not yet a GM. Cori only attained 2500 (barely) last month and hence only became a GM this year, not in 2009 as shown. This list should be corrected as other GMs who officially got their titles at the indicated age are unfairly pushed down the sequence.
“A 36-year gap between Fischer in 1958 and Leko in 1994. That shows how much harder it was to become a GM in those days.”
The difference today are the extremely strong computer programs that produce so many young “phenoms”. Sadly, chess has become a computer-dependent game.
“A 36-year gap between Fischer in 1958 and Leko in 1994. That shows how much harder it was to become a GM in those days.”
I don’t believe it does. I think, what it shows, is that with the advent of computers, kids actually have an advantage over older players, for a limited period of time.
The first generation of computer taught players, have an advantage over the last generation of non-computer taught players.
That’s why where’s seeing this surge of young players who qualify as grand masters, i think.