A 12 year old Indian -American Abhimanyu Mishra has become the youngest grandmaster in chess history. He scored his third GM norm in Budapest, Hungary. Abhimanyu hails from New Jersey in the United States. He broke the earlier record of GM Sergey Karjakin that stood for 19 years. Karjakin secured the Grandmaster title in August 2002 at the age of 12 years and seven months.
Abhumanyu, who was born on February 5, 2009, took 12 years, 4 months and 25 days to get his GM title. He spent several months in Budapest playing back to back tournaments to achieve this feat. He has been in the Hungarian capital since April. He got his first and second GM norms in April and May.
He was barely two years old when his father Hemant, who works in data management introduced him to chess. By the age of 5, he started defeating his father and then started playing in local tournaments where he defeated players of his father’s age. At the age of 9, he was pitted against a 70 year old opponent but Abhimanyu defeated him in no time. He then went on to become the youngest National Master in the US at the age of 9.
His family is elated as Abhimanyu worked hard all these years to achieve this feat.
