An India-origin boy by the name of Abhimanyu Mishra became the youngest Grandmaster in chess on Wednesday. He is a resident of New Jersey, United States and credited for breaking the 12 years and 7 months record set by GM Sergey Karjakin in 2002.

Who is Abhimanyu Mishra?

Abhimanyu Mishra is a 12-year-old chess prodigy from New Jersey. He played his third Chess Grandmaster Norm on Wednesday at the Vezerkepzo GM Mix tournament in Budapest. Prior to that, he had already crossed the 2500 Elo rating barrier.

Elo rating is a rating method used to calculate the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess.  

Also Read: Who is Viswanathan Anand, former world chess champion?

Abhimanyu broke several other records in the chess space before this. He broke the United States Chess Federation record for youngest Expert by earning a 2000 USCF rating at the age of 7 years. The record was earlier claimed by Awonder Liang.

Mishra also became the youngest-ever US Chess Master by earning a 2200 USCF rating at the age of 9 breaking the record of Liran Zhou.

In addition to that, Abhimanyu earned the title of the youngest International Master in November 2019 breaking the Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa’s record. Another record that India’s star chess player holds.

Also Read: Leon Mendonca, 14, becomes India’s 67th Grandmaster; second to hail from Goa

Reactions

Ever since the news of Abhimanyu’s remarkable victory broke out, wishes and congratulatory messages are pouring in from across the world, especially India.

Dr Sanjay Kaporr, president of All India Chess Federation also took to Twitter to congratulate Abhimanyu. 

 “Bravo, Abhimanyu! You’ve done India proud. Keep it up,” wrote Sanjay.