Chess prodigy

Chess prodigies are children who play chess so well that they are able to beat Masters and even Grandmasters, often at a very young age. Chess is one of the few sports where children can compete with adults on equal ground; it is thus one of the few skills in which true child prodigies exist. The chess world always looks with big expectations to these prodigies. Some of them have become World Champions, others have failed to make progress in their adulthood.

List of chess prodigies

In alphabetical order:

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• Michael Adams became an International Master at 15 and a grandmaster at 17
• Viswanathan Anand became India's first International Grandmaster at 18 and went on to become the World Chess Champion.
• Etienne Bacrot
• Mark Bluvshtein became an International Master at 13 and a grandmaster at 16
• José Raúl Capablanca, 1888-1942, learned chess at the age of four, beat his country's chess champion in a match when he was 13, and eventually became world champion.
• Magnus Carlsen became the world's youngest GM in April 2004 (the second youngest in the history of the game)
• Anya Corke
• Bobby Fischer became US Champion at the age of 15 and went on to become world champion.
• Kateryna Lahno
• Pentala Harikrishna became a grandmaster at 15
• Koneru Humpy is said to be the youngest female Grandmaster ever, but this is debated
• Gata Kamsky had an Elo rating of 2650 at the age of 16
• Sergey Karjakin, at the age of 12 years and 7 months he became the youngest grandmaster ever. He was the official second (helper) of fellow Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov, during the 2002 FIDE World championship.
• Anatoly Karpov became a grandmaster at 18 and went on to become world champion.
• Garry Kasparov became a grandmaster at 17 and went on to become the youngest ever world champion.
• Joel Lautier
• Péter Lékó was once the world's youngest ever Grandmaster
• Luke McShane won the World Under-10 Championship at the age of eight
• Paul Morphy, 1837-1884 who at the age of twelve beat Johann Löwenthal 3-0. (See page on Paul Morphy)
• Hikaru Nakamura became a GM at 15 and US chess champion at 16
• Gastón Needleman
• Parimarjan Negi the youngest International Master in 2005.
• Judit Polgar
• Ruslan Ponomariov, the FIDE World Champion during 2002–2004
• Teimour Radjabov, became the youngest GM at the age of 14 years, until Karjakin broke his record.
• Samuel Reshevsky, a Polish boy, learned the rules at the age of 4, and gave simultaneous exhibitions at the age of six.
• Nigel Short finished joint-first in the British Championship at the age of 14
• Boris Spassky became an International Grandmaster at 18 and went on to become world champion.
• Aston Taminsyah won world school chess U-8 Championship at 7+
• Murugan Thiruchelvam
• Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son was world champion under ten in 2000
• Josh Waitzkin
• Peter Winston

See also: list of chess players, list of chess world championship matches.

Related Topics:
List of chess players - List of chess world championship matches

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