Written by Nayantara Singh, a grade 9 student

Who is a chess grandmaster? Have you ever wondered this?

Here’s a quick explainer…

A Chess Grandmaster

A chess grandmaster is a someone who is very skilled at playing chess. These are players who have mastered the game’s rules, strategies, and tactics. Grandmasters are the very best of all chess players!

How do you become a chess grandmaster?

So, you may ask – how to become a chess grandmaster? It’s not easy!

Here are some steps to become a chess grandmaster:

Achieve a High Chess Rating: A player needs to get a minimum Elo rating of 2500. Think of the Elo rating like a special score that shows how good the player is at chess. It goes up as the player wins games. If the player loses, the score goes down. The more games a player plays, and wins, the higher the Elo rating becomes.

Earn Grandmaster Norms: Players need to earn three grandmaster norms in tournaments. Think of a norm as a special award that’s given when a player does really well in a tournament. It’s something like getting a star for having really good chess skills!

But, here’s another thing to know about grandmaster norms. A norm can be different based on how strong the other player is. So, to get a grandmaster norm, a player has to do a few things.

First, the player needs to play against very good chess players and also do well against them. They have to win games to show they are good at chess.

But, that’s not all! A player needs to do this three times in different tournaments. So, they need to prove three times that they are really good at chess!

Defeat Grandmasters: Another thing the players need to do to get these norms is to defeat a specific number of grandmasters in tournament games. This shows that they can compete at their level.

Satisfy Geographic Requirements: Now, this is not all. Players may also need to get norms in different countries and play with people from different countries! This shows that they can play at an international level.

Pay Attention to Title Application: Once a player has the above requirements, they can apply to FIDE – the international Chess Federation – for getting the grandmaster title. FIDE will then look at the player’s record and, if all the requirements are met, they will award the title of grandmaster to the player!

Becoming a chess grandmaster is not easy – it takes years of practice, hard work, and exceptional chess skills. It’s like winning a gold medal in the Olympics!

How many chess grandmasters are there?

FIDE has awarded 2044 grandmaster titles so far and Russia has the maximum number of grandmasters.

Who is the youngest person to become a chess Grandmaster?

Abhimanyu Mishra

Here are the top ten youngest grandmasters in the world

1		Abhimanyu Mishra	United States	12 years, 4 months, 25 days
2		Sergey Karjakin	Ukraine	12 years, 7 months, 0 days
3		Gukesh Dommaraju	India	12 years, 7 months, 17 days
4		Javokhir Sindarov	Uzbekistan	12 years, 10 months, 5 days
5		Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu	India	12 years, 10 months, 13 days
6		Nodirbek Abdusattorov	Uzbekistan	13 years, 1 month, 11 days
7		Parimarjan Negi	India	13 years, 4 months, 22 days
8		Magnus Carlsen	Norway	13 years, 4 months, 27 days
9		Wei Yi	China	13 years, 8 months, 23 days
10		Raunak Sadhwani	India	13 years, 9 months, 28 days

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