They're coming
They're coming. The new generation of chess players. In the last few days, three open tournaments were won by three chess players at an average age of just thirteen years old.To prevent you from falling from your chair and break something, let's start with the oldest. In this context, fourteen-year-old (and six months) Wesley So from the Philippines is a veteran. Since December last year he's the youngest grandmaster on earth - only six players got that title at a younger age: Sergei Karjakin, Parimarjan Negi, Magnus Carlsen, Bu Xiangzhi, Teimour Radjabov and Ruslan Ponomariov.
And this GM title is not just a coincidence, no, So (2540) proved his strenght last week at the Dubai Open. There he won the tournament on tiebreak with 7 / 9, finishing joint first with GM Merab Gagunashvili, GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami and GM Li Chao. In the following game he beats the current world juniors champion and best Egyptian player GM Ahmed Adly:
During the Dutch Championship, also held last week, the Intomart GfK Open was held in the same playing hall, and was won by Anish Giri (2401) who is only thirteen years old. He won on tiebreak as well, finishing shared first with GM Mikheil Mchedlishvili. In doing so, Giri, who is an FM, scored his first GM norm! He's been living in The Netherlands since this year, after his father found a job there.His game against Ceko was impressive. A model hedgehog: 
The youngest tournament winner in this article is the Ukrainian FM Ilya Nyzhnyk (2397) and he's only eleven (and a half). Last Sunday he won the Nabokov Memorial in Kiyv, before GM Yuri Kruppa and GM Vysochin Spartak. His score of 8.5 / 11 was also enough for a grandmaster result. The worst thing about these kids? Their endgame skills! Look at this one:Here are two videos with Nyzhnyk: in the first he gives a simul, but that was four years ago! In the second one, you can see him getting his prize after he won the
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Links:
- Website Dubai Open
- Games Dubai in PGN
- Website Nabokov Memorial
- Games Nabokov in PGN
- Website Intomart GfK Open
- Games Intomart in PGN
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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