Current Youngest GM Record Broken In Reykjavik!
A 13-year old Chinese player Wei Yi (pictured) has qualified to become the youngest Grandmaster in the world!
Wei Yi is currently sharing the lead at the Reykjavik Open with a score of 6½/8, which is already a strong enough performance to earn his third and final GM norm.
Since Wei Yi's current rating is 2501 Elo, he has passed the minimum rating criteria of 2500. His latest scalp was French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in round eight in Reykjavik (see below).
At 13 years, 8 months and 23 days old, Wei Yi is currently the youngest GM (elect) in the world, and the fourth youngest player ever to become a Grandmaster!
Youngest Ever Grandmasters (source: Wikipedia)
| # | Name | Country | Age |
| 1 | Sergey Karjakin | Russia | 12 years, 7 months, 0 days |
| 2 | Parimarjan Negi | India | 13 years, 4 months, 22 days |
| 3 | Magnus Carlsen | Norway | 13 years, 4 months, 27 days |
| 4 | Wei Yi | China | 13 years, 8 months, 23 days |
| 5 | Bu Xiangzhi | China | 13 years, 10 months, 13 days |
| 6 | Richárd Rapport | Hungary | 13 years, 11 months, 6 days |
| 7 | Teimour Radjabov | Azerbaijan | 14 years, 0 months, 14 days |
| 8 | Ruslan Ponomariov | Ukraine | 14 years, 0 months, 17 days |
| 9 | Wesley So | Philippines | 14 years, 1 month, 28 days |
| 10 | Étienne Bacrot | France | 14 years, 2 months, 0 days |
| 11 | Jorge Cori | Peru | 14 years, 2 months |
| 12 | Illya Nyzhnyk | Ukraine | 14 years, 3 months, 2 days |
| 13 | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | France | 14 years, 4 months |
| 14 | Péter Lékó | Hungary | 14 years, 4 months, 22 days |
| 15 | Hou Yifan | China | 14 years, 6 months, 16 days |
| 16 | Anish Giri | Netherlands | 14 years, 7 months, 2 days |
| 17 | Yuriy Kuzubov | Ukraine | 14 years, 7 months, 12 days |
| 18 | Dariusz Swiercz | Poland | 14 years, 7 months, 29 days |
| 19 | Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | Vietnam | 14 years, 10 months |
| 20 | Daniil Dubov | Russia | 14 years, 11 months, 14 days |
| 21 | Ray Robson | United States | 14 years, 11 months, 16 days |
| 22 | Fabiano Caruana | Italy | 14 years, 11 months, 20 days |
.
13 year-old Grandmaster Wei Yi
.
The Reykjavik Open is a 10-round Swiss competition, featuring more than 30 Grandmasters which finishes on Wednesday 27th February. The top standings after 8 rounds are:
| # | Name | Fed | Elo | Pts | TB |
| 1 | Eljanov Pavel | UKR | 2678 | 6.5 | 38.5 |
| 2 | So Wesley | PHI | 2684 | 6.5 | 37.5 |
| 3 | Dziuba Marcin | POL | 2602 | 6.5 | 37.0 |
| 4 | Gajewski Grzegorz | POL | 2644 | 6.5 | 37.0 |
| 5 | Wei Yi | CHN | 2501 | 6.5 | 36.5 |
| 6 | Ding Liren | CHN | 2709 | 6.5 | 36.0 |
| 7 | Yu Yangyi | CHN | 2688 | 6.0 | 40.0 |
| 8 | Giri Anish | NED | 2722 | 6.0 | 39.0 |
| 9 | Cheparinov Ivan | BUL | 2709 | 6.0 | 38.0 |
| 10 | Jones Gawain C B | ENG | 2637 | 6.0 | 37.0 |
| 11 | Yilmaz Mustafa | TUR | 2531 | 6.0 | 37.0 |
| 12 | Grandelius Nils | SWE | 2566 | 6.0 | 36.5 |
| 13 | L'ami Erwin | NED | 2622 | 6.0 | 36.5 |
| 14 | Navara David | CZE | 2710 | 6.0 | 36.0 |
| 15 | Stefansson Hannes | ISL | 2496 | 6.0 | 34.5 |
| 16 | Amin Bassem | EGY | 2631 | 6.0 | 34.5 |
| 17 | Guramishvili Sopiko | GEO | 2414 | 6.0 | 34.0 |
| 18 | Ipatov Alexander | TUR | 2569 | 5.5 | 38.5 |
| 19 | Halkias Stelios | GRE | 2566 | 5.5 | 37.0 |
| 20 | Solak Dragan | TUR | 2603 | 5.5 | 35.5 |
.
Here are the Reykjavik games that have earned Wei Yi the Grandmaster title:
.
Wei Yi photos via the official website. Games via TWIC.
