Thursday, Sep 28, 2023

Youngest grandmaster: Abhimanyu Mishra hailed as wonder kid

Abhimanyu scored his third GM norm in Budapest by defeating Indian GM Leon Luke Mendonca

By Shiva Krishna Gundra

Published Date - 11:48 PM, Fri - 2 July 21

Youngest grandmaster: Abhimanyu Mishra hailed as wonder kid — Abhimanyu Mishra. -Photo: Twitter

Hyderabad: Indian origin chess player from the United States Abhimanyu Mishra created history by becoming the youngest grandmaster at 12 years, 4 months and 25 days, breaking an earlier record held by Ukraine’s Sergey Karjakin. Ukraine Karjakin achieved the GM title at the age of 12 years, 7 months, 19 years ago.

Wishes kept pouring in from every quarter hailing the wonder kid. Five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand took to twitter congratulating the young lad. Abhimanyu scored his third GM norm in Budapest by defeating Indian GM Leon Luke Mendonca. The New Jersey player had already crossed the 2,500 Elo rating mark. He is now only the fifth player to achieve the GM title before they turned 13. He also was the youngster master in US history at 9 years, two months and youngest IM ever at 10 years, nine months and three days, breaking GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu’s record by 17 days.

Telangana’s first Grandmaster and the seventh youngster Indian to achieve the GM title at the age of 14 years, 11 months and 13 days, Arjun Erigaisi said the achievement was a great feat. “It is a great achievement. Definitely, he is very talented. The fact that he is from Indian origin makes it special,” he said speaking from Serbia, where he will be competing in an over-the-board competition.

He also felt that the technology did play a part for the younger generation to achieve big feats at a young age. “I definitely feel that technology has become an added advantage for us. We have access to a lot of information and games online and that definitely helped develop our game,” he added.

Meanwhile, Israel Grandmaster Victor Mikhalevski, who coached and played a big role in Arjun’s game, said there were drawbacks of technology as well. “Technology allows easy access to information and it is a big advantage to this generation compared to the former generations. Unfortunately, this tendency also has a drawback. There are many less individualities. Players rely mostly on computers, which leads to computer styles of the young players, where a precise calculation prevails over understanding of the game. That is easier to see on the lower levels though,” he elaborated.