Marc'Andria Maurizzi Becomes France's Youngest GM Ever
For 24 years the record stood but since today, GM Etienne Bacrot is no longer France's youngest grandmaster ever. Five days after turning 14, Marc'Andria Maurizzi secured the GM title at the GM tournament in Chartres.
The news has been dominated lately by prodigies. After our reports on Tani Adewumi becoming a national master at 10 and 12-year-old IM Abhimanyu Mishra scoring his second GM norm, today it's the real deal. France has a new grandmaster, his name is Marc'Andria Maurizzi, and he is the youngest GM ever in that country.
Born on May 16, 2007, Maurizzi turned 14 five days ago. The next day, he started in the GM tournament in Chartres, a chess-minded town 90 kilometers (56 miles) southwest of Paris. The residence of GM Alireza Firouzja, Chartres hosted two events this month. Alongside the tournament, there were also three matches with GM Gata Kamsky.
How to watch?
You can find, play through, and download all games of the Chartres matches and tournament on our Events page: Matches | GM Tournament.
Maurizzi ended up winning the tournament, a 10-player round-robin, with 6.5/9 and a 2602 performance, just enough for his third grandmaster norm. By winning 13 Elo points, he also crossed the 2500 mark. Back in 1997, Bacrot needed 14 years and two months, so Maurizzi is almost two months faster.
Chartres GM | Final Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Perf | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | ||
| 1 | Marc'Andria Maurizzi | 2489 | 2602 | 0 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | 6.5/9 | |||
| 2 | Sophie Milliet | 2390 | 2526 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 1 | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5.5/9 | 23.25 | ||
| 3 | Alberto David | 2517 | 2570 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5.5/8 | 22 | |||
| 4 | Alexandre Dgebuadze | 2490 | 2476 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 5.0/9 | 19.75 | ||
| 5 | Quentin Loiseau | 2455 | 2479 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5.0/9 | 17 | ||
| 6 | Glenn Flear | 2431 | 2443 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 4.5/9 | 19.25 | ||
| 7 | Anatole Vlachos | 2438 | 2442 | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4.5/9 | 18.5 | ||
| 8 | Victor Stephan | 2430 | 2323 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 3.0/9 | |||
| 9 | Peio Duboue | 2431 | 2298 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | 2.5/8 | ||||
| 10 | Kamran Shirazi | 2349 | 2235 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 2.0/9 |
All of Maurizzi's games
Maurizzi is from Bastia in the northeast of the island Corsica. In 2019, he won the French junior championship for players under 12 years old. In July of that year, he secured the IM title at age 12 years and two months.
He scored his first two GM norms in Catalonia. Last December, Maurizzi got the first at the open tournament in Sitges, and two months later he clinched his second norm in Barcelona.
As it turns out, Maurizzi also surpassed big names such as GM Teimour Radjabov, GM Ruslan Ponomariov, and GM Wesley So in the list of youngest grandmasters ever. Here are the top 15; for more information, see our article The Youngest Chess Grandmasters In History.
Top 15 Youngest Chess Grandmasters
| No. | Fed | Player | Country | Age |
| 1 | Sergey Karjakin | Ukraine | 12 years, 7 months, 0 days | |
| 2 | Gukesh Dommaraju | India | 12 years, 7 months, 17 days | |
| 3 | Javokhir Sindarov | Uzbekistan | 12 years, 10 months, 5 days | |
| 4 | Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu | India | 12 years, 10 months, 13 days | |
| 5 | Nodirbek Abdusattorov | Uzbekistan | 13 years, 1 month, 11 days | |
| 6 | Parimarjan Negi | India | 13 years, 4 months, 22 days | |
| 7 | Magnus Carlsen | Norway | 13 years, 4 months, 27 days | |
| 8 | Wei Yi | China | 13 years, 8 months, 23 days | |
| 9 | Raunak Sadhwani | India | 13 years, 9 months, 28 days | |
| 10 | Bu Xiangzhi | China | 13 years, 10 months, 13 days | |
| 11 | Samuel Sevian | United States | 13 years, 10 months, 27 days | |
| 12 | Richard Rapport | Hungary | 13 years, 11 months, 6 days | |
| 13 | Marc'Andria Maurizzi | France | 14 years, 0 months, 5 days | |
| 14 | Teimour Radjabov | Azerbaijan | 14 years, 0 months, 14 days | |
| 15 | Ruslan Ponomariov | Ukraine | 14 years, 0 months, 17 days |
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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