Chess Prodigies: The Future of Romanian Chess
Welcome everyone to another blog by @squirtle! In today's blog I will discuss about Romania's biggest chess talents. I've seen a lot of chess prodigies blogs, and since one for Romania hasn't been made yet, I thought I should try making one. Every single talent that I will be talking in this video will have his own special game, usually their most impressive game.
However, before starting, I want to thank you guys for the support you gave me on my last blog. Part 3 will come after I end my run in BlogChamps, since I want to try something new and original for the competition.
Without further ado, let's get into this blog!
Table of Contents:
Tudor, Henry Eduard ( born July 25, 2011) is a rising star in the Romanian chess community. Unlike other chess prospects, he started playing chess quite late, at 10. However, that didn't stop him from becoming one of the youngest Fide Masters in Romania and now he is trying to earn the International Master Title.
You can find him playing actively on Chess.com on the account @SuperPower2011.
Since the start of his chess journey, he was clearly talented. In 2021, he got 3rd place at the Championship of Constanta 2021( the city where he is from), with a score of 6/9.
Theoretically, he was the champion of Constanta, since the ones above weren't legitimated at a club in Constanta, so he theoretically became the youngest champion of Constanta.
After that followed his success in 2022 at the European Youth Chess Championship in Thessaloniki, Greece, where he tied for 2nd place with Pawel Solinski(POL) and Patryk Cieslak(POL), but got in front of them due to tiebreaks.
In 2023, Henry got his IM norm after a closed tournament in Budapest, where he managed to get 3rd place after 9 rounds, defeating IM Adam Horvath(HUN), IM Mișa Pap(SRB), IM Nikola Sedlak(SRB) and FM Varshini Sahithi(IND). Not only that, but he drew against IM Tom Woodward(USA) and Anto Cristiano Manish(IND).
As of writing this (March 2025) , Henry has got the FM Title, but he'll soon probably reach all of the IM norms. His FIDE account is here, click on the blue text if you want to see it.
For his game, I decided to pick his 136-move game where he drew against Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi. Yes, that Arjun Erigaisi.
The position isn't looking good for Henry, will he manage to come back?
In conclusion, Henry is one of the biggest talents of his generation, and I think he'll become in the future years a Grandmaster and clearly a figure in Romanian Chess.
Negrean Andrei (born 2012) is a Romanian FIDE Master who rose not as quickly as Henry but managed to reach an impressive 2299 peak classic rating. You can find him playing on his chess.com account, @TheRabbit19.
His talent was first shown at the EU Youth Chess Championship 2019 when he was 7 years old. Here he managed to achieve third place in his category, U8.
After 2 years, in August 2021, Negrean came back to the EU Youth Chess Championship, this time succeeding and getting first place.
In October of the exact same year (2021), Negrean participated in another major chess competition, The European Youth & Junior Chess Championship (yes these are different competitions). He barely lost first place because he lost last round against Cankurt Ada(TUR), even though they had the same score (7.5/9), Cankurt won against Negrean and claimed gold.
Next year, he participated in the same tournament as Henry, The European Youth Rapid& Blitz Chess Championship. Here he managed to get first place with an 8/9 score.
He also participated in 2023 at The ChessKid 4th Anual Youth Speed Chess Championship, but he got matched up against Faustino Oro( aka the Messi of chess, won against Magnus Carslen), and lost.
However, in 2024, he achieved one of his most impressive achievements. At the World Rapid & Blitz Championships in Durres, Albania, he managed to get 3rd place at his category, U12 OPEN, at Blitz.
You're maybe asking yourself:
Why is this one of his most impressive achievements? After all, he did won The European Youth Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship.
True, he did manage to do that, but this shown that he could compete against other participants from other countries that aren't from Europe.
As of writing this (March 2025), Andrei has got the FM Title, and he is not far behind Henry, and he will probalby get his IM title soon. His FIDE account is here, if you want to check it out.
For his chess game, I chose his recent game against IM Parligras, Mircea Emilian, one of the best Romanian chess players of all time. This game happened at The Romanian National Championship in THE FIRST ROUND( like they got paired together intentionally so I can write about the game 🤣)
That is right ladies and gentlemen, we have a brilliant move incoming! Can you spot it?
Very exciting game and congratulations to both sides, especially to Negrean for finding that brillian move!
In conclusion, Andrei is a rising star and will probably become a Grandmaster when he grows up, or maybe even better, who knows?
Sofronie Vladimir(born 2013), is a huge talent. At the age of 10 YEARS, he became a CM and he is playing really well(not that the others aren't good but he is REALLY good for his very young age, at his age Henry just started, so he has more time to grow).
In 2021, he participated at The European Youth Chess Championship, where he got first place at his category, U8, finishing with a score of 8.5/9.
After this followed his incredible run at The Balkaniad 2022, where he managed to get first place at every single category( Classic, Rapid, and Blitz), WITHOUT LOSING ANY GAME(of course at his age category, U10).
In 2023, Vladimir won gold at The European Youth Chess Championship in Mamaia, Romania, a competition I actually went to( I went to U14 and got 2/9). There he managed to get 7.5/9 points, an incredible achievement.
As of writing this( March 2025), he's still a CM, however I'm quite sure in a few months he will become a FM. His FIDE account is here, if you want to check it out.
Update: At his last tournament, he got 126 ELO, now having 2299 and now he is literally 1 ELO away from becoming a FM, since from what I know, he got the norms in the same competition.
For his chess game, I chose his game against one of the other players that I wrote in this blog, Tudor Henry Eduard. Their game was played in 2023, when Vlad was only 1700 rated.
As expected, nothing too crazy. However, as we saw in the other two games, we might have a surprise in the middlegame.
Henry is dominating the position, but will he manage to mantain this form for the rest of the game?
Yes, it was a rollercoaster of blunders there, but in the end this quote represented this game.
In conclusion, this kid is something special, a talent that we hope will not get lost as other chess talents before him.
As other top chess countries, Romania isn't behind when it comes to chess talents. The three that I showed you today are only a part of Romania's talents, some being even more impressive than the ones I showed you today. If you would like a part 2 of this blog, feel free to announce me in the comments, and tell me if you liked this style of analysis( like serious analysis, less jokes), or if I should also include some humor some times.
Without anymore talking, see you next time!
~@squirtle
