Youngest grandmasters

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Youngest grandmasters

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Mon May 20, 2013 12:30 pm

This Chessbase article includes a table updated to show the two GMs under the age of fifteen who achieved the title this year (Wei Yi of China and Jan-Krzysztof Duda of Poland):

http://en.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/ ... 90513.aspx

The latest sub-15 GM features here:

http://en.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/ ... 90513.aspx

How likely is it that Sergey Karjakin's 11-year-old record of achieving the GM title at the age of 12 will be broken in the future?

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon May 20, 2013 12:41 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: How likely is it that Sergey Karjakin's 11-year-old record of achieving the GM title at the age of 12 will be broken in the future?
I would think it very likely that a player will emerge of the required strength. If they have to get their rating to 2500 to obtain their title, that has presumably become more difficult if they start playing rated chess at a very young age and have to progress from 1200 or 1400 to 2500 in not many years.

Duda started from 1834 in 2006, so he's gained around 100 points a year on average, which is evidently doable.

Paul Sanders
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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by Paul Sanders » Tue May 21, 2013 11:17 pm

Here's a fun advanced search at the FIDE ratings database:

http://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml ... thday=2004

You can fiddle easily with the search terms - I chose a 2004 birth year to show which 9 year olds might be in contention.

You can also add &country=nnn where nnn is the 3 letter country code to compare the relative performance of the national junior systems in a) getting children rated, and b) getting their ratings up.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed May 22, 2013 12:06 am

Paul Sanders wrote: You can also add &country=nnn where nnn is the 3 letter country code to compare the relative performance of the national junior systems in a) getting children rated, and b) getting their ratings up.
Looking at the players at the top, they jump right in with an 1800 or better initial rating. That has to be the way to do it, avoiding the long climb from 1000 or 1200.

Karjakin himself was 2206 in Jan 2000 at the age of 9 or 10.

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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by Paul Sanders » Wed May 22, 2013 10:17 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:Looking at the players at the top, they jump right in with an 1800 or better initial rating.
Yes - but they do so at a very young age. Jan-Krzysztof Duda was 9 or 10 years old when he came into the ratings at 1834. Parents tend to prioritise school exams over chess titles, even for the very best players, so the 6 years between 9 and 15 would seem the crucial years currently for developing top performers.

The numbers show that even quite normal children can achieve 2200+ by their early teens, given some training and support. I think the numbers also show that while there might be some variations between children in their natural rate of learning, it would be wrong to assume that a child's improvement is somehow 'hidden' from the rating system, and that a fast catch up is impossible. There are plenty of cases of far greater than 100 point improvements over any 12 month period, if enough games are played.

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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed May 22, 2013 10:53 am

Paul Sanders wrote: Yes - but they do so at a very young age. Jan-Krzysztof Duda was 9 or 10 years old when he came into the ratings at 1834.
I think the point perhaps is that the rating reflected his standard of play at that age. The danger now is that if someone's standard of play is only 1000, as presumably it must be for all players at some stage of their development from just having learnt the moves, that they get a rating based on that in their initial outings into rated chess. This rating then makes it more difficult to be in the 1800s at the age of 9 or 10.

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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by Paul Sanders » Wed May 22, 2013 12:14 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:The danger now is that if someone's standard of play is only 1000, as presumably it must be for all players at some stage of their development from just having learnt the moves, that they get a rating based on that in their initial outings into rated chess. This rating then makes it more difficult to be in the 1800s at the age of 9 or 10.
I am not sure that the numbers show that to be the case at all.

Let's take the example of a child who is good enough to be 'in the 1800s', but who has come into the rating system at 1200. They could quickly use up their 25K allowance, and from that point there is 15 points per game available to them. A proper statistician would be able to show how this works, but it's obvious even to an innumerate like me that right up to the high 1600s there are nearly 100 points per 9 round tournament available from playing and beating players with an average rating of 1800.

The rating system seems therefore to have much less effect on the rate of gain than the number of games played and drawn or won against higher rated opponents. A lagging rating actually enhances the speed of catch up. If the player stops improving then of course the rate of gain slows down as they near their equilibrium.

It would be very fair indeed to say that ENG juniors don't get opportunities to play rated 9 rounders, but you can't blame the rating system for that.

Ian Thompson
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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by Ian Thompson » Wed May 22, 2013 7:40 pm

Paul Sanders wrote:There are plenty of cases of far greater than 100 point improvements over any 12 month period, if enough games are played.
In some cases, 9 games in 8 days is long enough - http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calc ... 2013-05-01.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Fri May 02, 2014 1:04 pm

Does anyone know if the currently youngest GM has been born in the 21st century? (It seems currently that is Wei, Yi - born 1999). If you include IMs, you get the two US IMs Sevian, Samuel (IM) USA [2446] and Xiong, Jeffrey [2412], both born in 2000.

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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by NickFaulks » Fri May 02, 2014 1:11 pm

Ian Thompson wrote:
Paul Sanders wrote:There are plenty of cases of far greater than 100 point improvements over any 12 month period, if enough games are played.
In some cases, 9 games in 8 days is long enough - http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calc ... 2013-05-01.
And after July, when k=40 comes in, that rating gain would be over 150. Juniors will face problems only in places like England where few tournaments are registered for FIDE rating.
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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri May 02, 2014 1:30 pm

NickFaulks wrote: And after July, when k=40 comes in, that rating gain would be over 150.
For anyone whose performance improvement is consistent, their ratings can rocket. Any junior whose improvement is in fits and starts could just as well be hit by a loss of 80 points as that now only requires a "-2" performance.

On balance it's probably inflationary if the plus 80s continue playing and the minus 80s give up.

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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by NickFaulks » Fri May 02, 2014 1:38 pm

Paul Sanders wrote: It would be very fair indeed to say that ENG juniors don't get opportunities to play rated 9 rounders, but you can't blame the rating system for that.
Why 9 rounders? Weekend tournaments can be rated.

To reiterate the problems which seem peculiar to the UK:

1. The requirement that the first time control should be at move 40. I don't like that rule, and find it illogical, but even so it seems to me that both sides are being quite obstinate.

2. The requirement that all games be four hours long where any participant is rated >2200. I have come round to the view that we should enforce this rule on a game-by-game basis, so that results could be reported showing only games played between two <2200 players. That is controversial ( I think ) and may not happen. In any case, weekend Major and Minor events could and should be FIDE rated, even though the Open played alongside is not. Nobody does this, but it would be great for juniors. I don't know how it would fit in with the ECF membership scheme, and don't really care.

3. Many strong players prefer their relatively casual games not to affect their FIDE rating. My suggestions above would help to overcome that.
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MartinCarpenter
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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by MartinCarpenter » Fri May 02, 2014 4:12 pm

Surely, if anything, that'd make the problem with junior grades worse? The issue is that they get a low initial grade then can't catch up fast enough. Rate everything below the open and you'll fix them with a really low initial grade and then stop them ever catching it up to their FIDE grade once their ECF forces them into Open sections :(

Rating entire weekend events (teams or congresses) is something else, which I don't think many would complain on principle cf e2e4 etc. Its the idea of FIDE rating after work evening leagues that really isn't ideal.

ps - The answer with the membership scheme would be moderately negatively as they charge a little bit more to do FIDE rated games. Not a huge obstacle perhaps but the sort of thing that can stop it happening.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri May 02, 2014 4:59 pm

MartinCarpenter wrote: ps - The answer with the membership scheme would be moderately negatively as they charge a little bit more to do FIDE rated games. Not a huge obstacle perhaps but the sort of thing that can stop it happening.
50% more to be precise if you get the discount £ 27 v £ 18. But £ 6 less for Welsh, Scottish, Irish and other non-English, or even not required to be a member at all and pay nothing towards the ECF if just visiting.

I'm not sure what the Dutch do in their weekenders, perhaps the same, just don't rate them. The logistical problem is that if you want
(a) five rounds
(b) no Friday evening play
(c) no early starts
(d) no late finishes
you are forced into a Saturday timetable that schedules games to be completed in three and a half hours. That way, with half an hour between rounds, you can start at 10 am and be finished by 10 pm.

If a tournament is non-residential, some of the players may be travelling up to an hour or longer, before and after the day's play.

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Michael Farthing
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Re: Youngest grandmasters

Post by Michael Farthing » Fri May 02, 2014 5:04 pm

Most congresses I go have 5 rounds including one on Friday and are invariably 4 hour games (I don't go to the congress otherwise).
None of them are FIDE rated.

So it seems solving the above two problems doesn't change organisers' minds. Surely it can't just be the 40 moves?