Youngest GM

[Nick Burrows]

An enormous talent, who I was unaware of until today - Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus: https://www.chess.com/news/view/erdogmu ... dium=email

[NickFaulks]

He's been on my radar for a while. It's good to see that he hasn't been racking up norms and rating points in the places where youngsters sometimes go to do that.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I agree with Nick F that it is unseemly sometimes when prodigies (or their family or entourage) try and boost them to break the record. One of the most impressive things about Karjakin's record (regardless of what you think about the person) is that it stood for nearly 20 years (the rating record by Polgar that is about to fall is even older, at 35 years).

Thanks to Nick B for linking to the Chess.com article.

https://www.chess.com/news/view/erdogmu ... ster-at-12

I liked the following bits from the article:

In a comment provided to Chess.com, his father said: “Yagiz has a hobby that he really likes. He is just enjoying it and is not focusing on the rest that much."

In "The Pandemic Effect," former world championship challenger GM Peter Leko said about the trend: The technology is developing. All the online access, and during the pandemic we saw this [chess] boom that heavily contributed. The ones who started to play chess suddenly now have so much information.

Unless there is a rebound effect (seems unlikely) the average age for becoming a GM looks set to drop below 20 (Chess.com's researchers seem to be using a rolling 4-year average).

Love the video of the final 8 minutes of his game against Arjun Erigaisi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InexmcgVHPs

The denouement comes at about 7:30 into the 11-minute video.

The reaction of Erdogmus to his loss reminds me of a young Magnus Carlsen (not to put too much pressure on him!).

See also what Mike Klein said:

I also found him and his family to be quite humble. I really liked that they didn't feel the need to chase the all-time record and just let Yagiz earn it in his own time.

It is a good sign that he seems to have an intuitive grasp of endgames (excepting the unfortunate lapse against Erigasi above). And having Mamedyarov as one of your trainers will help a great deal!