Teenage prodigy R Praggnanandhaa got his second Grandmaster norm and when he won the closed GM tournament on Tuesday. He achieved the feat by winning the Herkalion Fischer Memorial GM Norm tournament in Greece.
The 12-year-old Chennai boy, who achieved his first GM norm in November last year, needed to win his last round-robin match Markidis Konstantinos. He won that comfortably to move one step closer to being a Grandmaster, winning the competition with 7.5 points from 9 outings in the process.
Greece GM Nikolaidis Loannis and India’s Anand Nadar finished second and third.
“I have an ELO rating of 2520 at the moment and have two GMs (norms). All I need is to get one more (GM norm) in order to be called a Grandmaster. My next target will be to get my third GM (norm),” Praggnanandhaa was quoted as saying by The Times of India.
To become a GM you need to earn three norms and a 2500 rating, so the Chennai boy needs one more norm to earn a GM title. He had won his first GM norm at the World junior championships in Tarvisio about five months back.
Sergey Karjakin of Russia holds the record for being the youngest GM at 12 years and seven months. He achieved that in 2002. In 2016, Praggnanandhaa became the youngest International Master at 10 years, 10 months, and 19 days.
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