Yet another 12-year-old grandmaster

by Frederic Friedel
4/9/2024 – He was born on 3 June 2011 in Bursa, Turkey. On April 1st (no April Fool's joke) the twelve-year-old, playing in the very strong GRENKE Chess Open, Yagiz Kaan Erdpgmus scored 7.0/9 points with a 2646 performance. With that he had fulfilled his final GM norm and become the youngest grandmaster in the world – the fourth youngest in chess history. We will be watching this young boy carefully. | Photo Ugur Medya
Your personal chess trainer. Your toughest opponent. Your strongest ally.
FRITZ 20 is more than just a chess engine – it is a training revolution for ambitious players and professionals. Whether you are taking your first steps into the world of serious chess training, or already playing at tournament level, FRITZ 20 will help you train more efficiently, intelligently and individually than ever before. 

Yağz Kaan Erdoğmuş – that is how you write his name in Turkish – was introduced to chess by his kindergarten teacher when he was six years old. He showed great talent for the game, and was soon winning national and international tournaments.  In 2019 he won the U8 European Championship, scoring 8.0/8 games, and in August 2021 Yagiz was ranked No. 1 in the World U10 Rankings. At the same time he was recognized as the No. 1 U11 player in the world.

Before turning twelve Yagiz became Turkey’s youngest IM. In April 2024 he became the fourth-youngest grandmaster in the world at the Grenke Chess Open and Classic.

Youngest grandmasters in history

Abhimanyu Mishra 12 years, 4 months, 25 days
Sergey Karjakin 12 years, 7 months, 0 days
Gukesh Domaraju 12 years, 7 months, 17 days
Yağz Kaan Erdoğmuş 12 years, 9 months, 29 days

You can view the development of this lad on our ChessBase Players utility. Or if you have a ChessBase Account you simply click on "Players".

There you get pictures, Elo progress data, white and black successes, favourite and least favourite opponents, strongest wins, the white and black openings repertoire and samples of recent games. Instant information – click on the screen shot for Yagiz's portrait:

And here are the nine games that earned Yagiz his final GM norm at the GRENKE Open A:

Incidentally, the German Chess Federation wanted Yagiz to represent Germany and offered him scholarship incentives. However, the lad decided to compete for Turkey.

Editor-in-Chief emeritus of the ChessBase News page. Studied Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Hamburg and Oxford, graduating with a thesis on speech act theory and moral language. He started a university career but switched to science journalism, producing documentaries for German TV. In 1986 he co-founded ChessBase.

Discuss

Rules for reader comments

 
 

Not registered yet? Register