A billionaire supports chess talents

Yağız Kaan Erdogmus is a 14-year-old Turkish chess prodigy, recognized as one of the world's strongest young players. He achieved the GM title at age 12, became the youngest player, ever, to reach a 2600 Elo rating, and is considered by Magnus Carlsen to be the best 14-year-old in chess history. 

But even a player like him at one stage came close to quitting chess – because of a lack of support. Contrary to popular belief, chess is not an inexpensive sport. Buying a chess set is easy, but if your goal is to become a world-class player, you need to travel to many tournaments, work with the best coaches, and cover many other expenses. Yağız was completely deprived of these opportunities. Of course, thanks to many online resources, especially during the pandemic, he could improve to a certain degree by studying passionately at home. But achieving real top-level success without proper training is nearly impossible.

Just over two years ago the billionaire entrepreneur Evren Üçok called chess coach and organiser Selim Gurcan, saying that his workload had decreased and that he wanted to do something in chess that would have a global impact. Selim told him about Yağız, and when Evren heard about his age and the achievements, he said there was no need to think twice: "We should support him." And that’s how the project started.

Evren approached Yağız like a father figure, making him feel that this was not just a sponsorship but genuine support that would last at least five years. It was very motivational. Yağız, who had not yet earned a grandmaster norm, proceeded to achiev three norms in three consecutive tournaments, and quickly became a full grandmaster.

Yağız steady climb towards 2700. Full details are here in the ChessBase Players Database.

His progress was so rapid that it was decided he should receive support from Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. It was agreed that he should meet with the boy occasionally and look at chess together. Eventually things reached such a level that Shakhriyar put his own career into the background and started working with Yağız full-time.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in in a blitz game against Yağız

Last year Yağız played a truly brilliant game against India’s ­Mittal Aditya. The “Turkish Immortal”, as Leonard Barden called it, saw the 14-year-old allowing his opponent two queens on the board, then sacrificing his own queen for a pawn, followed by checkmate delivered by a previously unmoved black pawn. "It was even more brilliant than Bobby ­Fischer’s 1956 'Game of the Century' against Donald Byrne," writes Barden. Here is Sagar Shah's description of the game that had everyone enthralled:

So who is Evren Üçok? He is a prominent anchor investor and entrepreneur and Senior Advisor at Lycian Capital, the co-founder and chairman of Trendyol, one of the world’s top e-commerce companies and Turkey’s first decacorn. You can read more about his business enterprizes here.

Evren has now decided to support other young talents from different countries as well. Here are some of the prodigies he has taken under his wing:

Clockwise from top left: Marc Llari (12 years), French prodigy who won the World Chess Championship U8 in 2022 and the French Chess Championship U12 in 2025. [photo: Marseillechecs]; Atilla Kuru, a very talented 14-year-old from Turkey who had a 2750-level performance at the 2024 European Individual Championship; Luca Protopopescu, a French prodigy who was ranked number one in the world for U-8 and U-9 [photo: FIDE]; Gulenay Aydın, one of Turkey’s promising Women International Masters [photo: FIDE]; Brewington Hardaway, the first African-American player to earn the Grandmaster title [photo: Ikuko Hardaway]: Bodhana Sivanandan, who in 2024 became the 3rd-highest-rated 8-year-old chess player ever.

Asked why Evren has decided to support talents from other countries, Selim Gurcan said: "Because he wants to make the world a better place, and he believes that one of the ways to do that is through chess. In particular, he sees chess as a remedy for the attention problems that are so common among children today. Just think about it. If, through chess, we can help save many children from the gaming and short-video addictions that people often complain about today, we will have done something truly valuable for the world."

A truly praise-worthy enterprise!