GM Abhimanyu Mishra
Bio
GM Abhimanyu "Abhi" Mishra is an American chess prodigy. In July 2021, Mishra earned his third norm required to become a grandmaster. With his FIDE rating already above 2500, he became the youngest grandmaster in history at the age of 12 years, four months, and 25 days.
Early Milestones
Grandmaster is not the only youngest-ever record Mishra has set as regarding chess titles. He was already the youngest international master in history, obtaining that title in November 2019 at the age of 10. In his national United States Chess Federation (USCF), Mishra was the youngest-ever expert (rating above 2000) and master (rating above 2200). He was an expert at just seven and a half and a master at nine years and two months.
By the time he was an expert, his goal was already to become the youngest-ever grandmaster, according to USCF.
Youngest Grandmaster
In 2021 Mishra traveled to Budapest, Hungary, to begin achieving his grandmaster norms, three of which are necessary to make GM. He earned them in consecutive months from April to June: Vezerkepzo GM in April, First Saturday in May, and Vezerkepzo GM Mix in June. Budapest was one of the few places in the world holding regular GM norm tournaments at the time.
Mishra's performance at First Saturday was especially crushing, a +7 =2 score to win the tournament by three points with a performance rating of 2739.
The previous record-holder for youngest GM was Sergey Karjakin, who achieved the title in 2002 at 12 years, 7 months old.
Next Steps
Karjakin went on to challenge GM Magnus Carlsen for the world championship in 2016. After his record was broken, he told Chess.com: "I hope that [Mishra] will go on to become one of the top chess players, and it will be just a nice start to his big career. I wish him all the best." It remains to be seen, of course, how far Mishra will go in his chess.
Mishra participated in the 2021 FIDE World Cup where he fell 1.5-0.5 in the first round to GM Baadur Jobava. In 2023, he won his first U.S. Junior Championship.
