12-year-old becomes the youngest chess Grandmaster ever!

Abhimanyu Mishra (USA), or just Abhi as he likes to be known, has become the youngest chess Grandmaster ever! 👦♟️ 

Aged 12 years 145 days, he achieved the rank of Grandmaster after beating another Grandmaster, Leon Mendonca (India), in a tournament - the GM Mix in Hungary.

Abhi regularly beats adults who are way older than him! 😎

He moved from his home in New Jersey to Budapest, Hungary for 3 months with his dad just so he could play in this tournament. That's dedication! 

Grandmaster = the highest rank in chess. To become a grandmaster, you must win three grandmaster norms and get an Elo rating of 2500.
Grandmaster norms = awards given for high level performance in a chess tournament.
Elo rating = a score given to every chess player. It goes up when you win and down when you lose. 2500 is a very high score.

Abhi broke the previous record with 66 days to spare. Sergey Karjakin (Ukraine) earned the title of youngest chess Grandmaster in 2002 - he held it for 19 years up until now!

This isn’t the first record Abhi has checkmated. He became the youngest Master in US history aged 9 years 2 months, as well as becoming the youngest International Master ever aged 10 years 9 months 3 days. 🏆

At one point last year, Abhi went 35 games in a row without a win. However, he remained confident in the face of all challenges and never gave up.

He practised for 12 hours a day, and finally achieved his dream of becoming the youngest Grandmaster in history.

Did you know? 🧐
Chess originated in India around 1400 years ago!