Wei Yi has become the youngest GM in the world

Wei Yi has become the youngest GM in the world

The 13-year-old Chinese IM, with two GM norms already under his belt, had 5.5/7 points in the Reykjavik Open. In round eight he faced a formidable opponent, Super-GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who back in 2005 had become one of the youngest grandmasters in the world at an age of 14 years and four months. Maxime was out for blood against his young and presumably inexperienced opponent. This is how the game went:

The top standings after round eight are now as follows:

The Chinese IM has secured his final GM norm, even if he were to lose his round nine game against GM Grzegorz Gajewski. And his FIDE rating of more than 2500 ensures that the title will be awarded immediately, making him the world's youngest grandmaster, and at the age of at the age of 13 years, 8 months and 23 days the fourth youngest in history – after Sergey Karjakin, Parimarjan Negi and Magnus Carlsen, as you can see in our table at the bottom of this page. Here is the progress of Wei Yi so far:

We bring you a few pictures we have thus far published of this super-talented young player:

11-year-old Wei Yi (2244) facing GM Liang Jinrong (2462) at the...

Chinese Chess League Division A in 2010 in Ningbo

12-year-old FM Wei YI in the Chinese League Division A in 2011

In our Aeroflot Open report in January 2012 we wrote:

In China 12-year-old Chinese FM Wei Yi is known and respected, having won the World Youth Under-12 in 2010, and in 2010 he was not only the youngest player to ever play in the Chinese League Division A, but also beat GM Ni Hua, a two-time Chinese champion who had peaked at 2724 Elo the year before. Rated 2331, by round seven he had played four grandmasters, two international masters and one FIDE master for a whopping 2570 performance. He was well on his way to a full GM norm. Then the spell was broken in round eight when he lost to 18-year-old Indian IM Babu Lalith (2484). This was not the end however as he played 24-year-old Russian IM Sergey Pavlov (2477) and notched a final win. His 2551 performance was good for an IM norm and then some, though there can be little doubt he will be chasing the GM title very soon if he isn’t already. 2012 may very well be his year.

And here a short video interview with Wei Yi on the Reykjavik Open tournament page:

Youngest grandmasters in history

• See: Chess prodigies and mini-grandmasters

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