14 years, 7 months, 2 days
From Russia / Nepal
Currently resides in Holland
Final GM norm earned at Corus C
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
- About Us
- Chess Improvement
- Chess Puzzles
- Chess Research
- College Chess
- General News
- Home
- Major Tournaments
- News
- Polgar Events
- Privacy Policy
- Scholastic Chess
- SPICE / Webster
- Susan’s Personal Blog
- Track your order
- USA Chess
- Videos
- Women’s Chess
- Contact Us
- Daily News
- My Account
- Terms & Conditions
- Privacy Policy
It’s interesting that despite Russia’s long history of being the mightiest chess nation, it’s only now that an exceptionally young Russian makes it as GM. And he’s not even full Russian.
My countryman, 14 y.o. Dariusz Swiercz, also earned GM title last week! Congratulations to both!
Szkoda, że Darek odniósł 2 porażki z rzędu w Mistrzostwach Polski i stracił 1 miejsce
In Russia (or better said – in Soviet Union) talented young players didn’t have a chance to play in international tournaments. They played only in junior events and in internal Soviet training camps against experienced world class players. They were honing their skills before being presented to the world.
Thus, while being very very strong, they had no rating and were all untitled. Remember that Kasparov was unrated when he played his first international tournament in Banja Luka (which he convincingly won). And even there he was sent by mistake. He was “released” too soon, so to speak 🙂 After that he was promptly #13 in the world! So he would certanly become GM earlier had he had a chance.
Also Kamsky beat former World championship candidate Mark Taimanov when he was 12 years old (at that time probably the youngest person to defeat a GM in serious game) but he had no title or rating.
Soviets didn’t allow their youngsters to compete in international tournaments until they matured enough. And these practice was somewhat continued few years after collapse of the Soviet Union. There was very big upheaval when Kasparov demanded that a certain unknown untitled 16 year old boy should represent Russia in the 1992 Olympiad. The young lad then went on to score 8.5/9 and soon after went straight to the GM title (one of the few who never held an IM title). If not for Kasparov, the young lad would be kept as a secret for another year or two.
You see, thats why there were no young GM’s from Soviet Union. Now of course everything has changed and there are and will be more young GM’s from that area.
P.S.: For everybody who don’t know – that young lad was Vladimir Kramnik.
If you take a closer look, this young lad, Anish Giri, has a face little bit resembling Kasparov at the same age.
To Anon 6:46:
Very enlightening post. One would think, however, that when Fischer set the age standard for exceptionally young GMs, the Soviets would have badly wanted to produce a younger one, given the US-USSR tit-for-tat at the that time.
Contrary to Fischer’s belief, the Soviets didn’t really consider him as the real threat until mid 1960’s. And then he quit the interzonals and took a break for two years. So again, they didn’t considered him as a real threat – until it was too late.
So saying that the Soviets would change their whole youth training policy because of Fischer – thats a big stretch. In reality Fischer was far more obsessed with Soviets then they were about him.