Viswanathan Anand Hails Indian-origin Abhimanyu Mishra For Breaking Youngest Grandmaster Record

Chess legend Viswanathan Anand took to Twitter to congratulate the 12-year-old. Abhimanyu won the title by defeating GM Leon in the April Vezerkepzo tournament on Wednesday.

Photo: @ani_digital / Twitter

Indian-origin Abhimanyu Mishra has created history in the game of chess at the age of 12 when most of the kids of his age like to play with toys and watch cartoons. At 12 years, four months and 25 days, chess player Abhimanyu has become the youngest Grandmaster.

Abhimanyu won the title by defeating GM Leon in the April Vezerkepzo tournament on Wednesday. Abhimanyu has broken the 19-year-old record of Russian Grandmaster Sergey Karjakin in 2002. New Jersey-based Abhimanyu said he was very happy with his victory and that he was feeling very relieved to be a Grandmaster.

Chess legend Viswanathan Anand took to Twitter to congratulate Abhimanyu.

"Great results for Indian chess! @NihalSarin @ArjunErigaisi and a big congrats to the Indian origin Abhimanyu Misra on becoming the youngest GM! Nihal is part of the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy and Arjun is a player I follow closely and play training games with" tweeted Anand.

Earlier, Abhimanyu also became the youngest International Master at the age of 10, at which time he shattered the record held by R Praggnanandhaa.  Due to the Covid-19 epidemic, Abhimanyu could not participate in any event for the last several months.

"On Wednesday, Mishra won the biggest game of his short but sweet career so far. He defeated the 15-year-old Indian GM Leon Luke Mendonca with the black pieces, securing a performance rating higher than 2600 over nine rounds," said an official release on Chess.com.

Mishra's next appearance will now be at the FIDE World Cup in Sochi from July 10.