Abhimanyu Mishra crowned world’s youngest grandmaster at the age of 12 years

Abhimanyu Mishra, an Indian-American prodigy, became the world's youngest chess Grandmaster on Wednesday after achieving his third GM norm in Budapest, Hungary.

He surpassed Sergey Karjakin's 19-year-old record. Karjakin, who was a world championship challenger of Magnus Carlsen in 2016, was 12 years and 7 months old when he received his GM title.

After crossing the needed 2500 Elo rating barrier, the 12-year-old from New Jersey, United States, earned a GM from International Master.

A player must achieve three GM norms and an Elo rating of 2500 or above to earn the title of grandmaster. Only tournaments in which at least 50% of the players are titleholders and at least one-third of them are GMs are eligible for the norms.

Mishra spent many months in Budapest, Hungary, going for the title and the record in back-to-back tournaments. He earned both his first and second GM norms there, at the Vezerkepzo event in April and the First Saturday tournament in May 2021, both round-robins with ten players specifically designed for scoring norms.

He did, however, succeed in his final try this month. Due to the large number of chess players who stayed in Budapest for such a long time, the organisers arranged one last tournament, this time including the Vezerkepzo GM Mix, a Swiss group. Mishra understood that after being invited to the FIDE World Cup in Sochi, this would be his final chance to compete before leaving Hungary.

Mishra put himself through a 10-day mock drill at home two years ago to adjust his physique and sleep routine to California time, which is three hours behind New Jersey time. He went reviewed preparations with his father until 3 a.m. every night, took walks outside their house to remain awake, and then flew to California on the tournament's first day in preparation of IM norm 2 years ago.

Mishra spends 10 to 12 hours a day practising chess, compared to four to six hours for others his age. It enabled him surpass R. Praggnanandhaa's record as the world's youngest international master back in November 2019.