Lu Miaoyi, World's 4th Youngest Female IM, Continues To Shine

14-year-old WGM Lu Miaoyi gained 200 rating points, secured the IM title, came close to scoring a GM norm, and skyrocketed to the world number-two spot for girls under 20, all in the past few months. The Chinese teenager is already reaching historic levels.

If you are yet to hear about Miaoyi, it is about time. The 14-year-old is one we are going to hear more from in the next few years.

"She's just on an astronomical pace. If we keep going on the way we are right now, we might be talking about a potential world champion contender. Maybe Judit Polgar will have a little bit of competition in the history books," the world's biggest chess Youtuber IM Levy Rozman, aka "GothamChess," remarked in a 2023 video that to date has 314,000 views.

If we keep going on the way we are right now, we might be talking about a potential world champion contender.

—Levy Rozman

The Chinese chess prodigy has had an explosive start to 2024, playing back-to-back tournaments with great success, and she may be rewarded with a spot on the strong national team for the Chess Olympiad in Budapest this year.

In the traditional Reykjavik Open in Iceland, which ended on Thursday, the young prodigy was just a final-round win away from scoring her first GM norm. Facing six grandmasters, Miaoyi scored 50 percent, including a draw against legendary GM Vasyl Ivanchuk.

However, the highlight moment was her delivering a crushing defeat with Black against England's GM Daniel Fernandez in round seven.

Despite a setback in the final round against GM Hedinn Steingrimsson, where she was close to score a sensational first GM norm, Miaoyi added another 28 rating points to her profile. She finished 33rd out of 395 participants with 6 points and a rating performance of 2489.

Since January, Miaoyi has ascended through the ranks with staggering speed, picking up 185 rating points to lift off from her rating of 2252. The 14-year-old is now ranked as high as second among girls under 20 years, behind IM Bibisara Assaubayeva, rated 2437.

Chess has been a major part of Miaoyi's family since her childhood as her mother is WGM Xu Yuanyuan, the 1997 World U16 Girls Chess Champion and 2000 World Junior Girls U20 Champion. Her grandfather was also an amateur chess player and a xiangqi (Chinese chess) champion.

In 2012 her mother brought two-year-old Miaoyi to her chess club and found that she did not make any noise in her class. Just a few months later, she had learned the basic rules of chess. In 2017, Xu Yuanyuan closed her chess club and the whole family moved from Beijing to Hangzhou to become a full-time chess mom. 

The breakthrough came when the family started travelling abroad in 2020. Miaoyi won events in Czech Republic, Poland and Serbia. As the pandemic limited options at home in China, Miaoyi took a break from school and travelled to Belgrade, Serbia to play tournaments non-stop. "We want to learn more and compete with people from different countries," her mother told Chinese media.

Unable to return to China due to the pandemic, Miaoyi played more than 500 rated games in all formats during 2022. She made significant progress and played some beautiful games that saw her gain attention from none other than Rozman, like this beautiful miniature against IM Lilit Mkrtchian.

Miaoyi secured the WGM title in 2023, as one of the youngest ever, but less than a year later, she has already secured the IM title. Just a month prior to the Reykjavik Open, she clinched her final norm in the Kragero Open in Norway, after having scored two norms in the Vandoeuvre Open in France and Sevilla Open in Spain.

INTERNATIONAL MASTER AT 14!!!! 🥳
Lu Miaoyi makes her final IM norm in Kragerø! She made all three norms in the last two months! 🤯
Miaoyi will be the 4th-youngest IM ever (!!) among #womeninchess, and just the 2nd to earn the title at 14!https://t.co/cbgZHN9Oqw
📷: KSU#chess pic.twitter.com/5kjFabnWOa

— Women's Chess Coverage (@OnTheQueenside) February 25, 2024

According to Chess.com's Tai Pruce-Zimmerman, who closely tracks historical ratings for the most promising youngsters, Miaoyi's expected April rating of 2437 will be one of the highest ever for a female player at the same age.

In fact, only three players have been higher at, or before, her age:

• Judit Polgar: 2555
• Hou Yifan: 2549
• Kateryna Lagno: 2493
• Lu Miaoyi: 2437
• Bibisara Assaubayeva: 2421
• Alice Lee: 2406

For fun, here is a scatter plot of EVERY published rating between the ages of 13 and 15 by any player that has (as of now) also had a published rating of 2700+ later in their career. Plus, Lu's ratings so far in that age range (in red).

With this sampling bias she fits in nicely pic.twitter.com/YcKveuCMTJ

— Chess by the Numbers (@ChessNumbers) March 19, 2024

It doesn't look like Miaoyi and her mother intend to rest for long. In April and May, the two have signed up for open tournaments in Cyprus and Greece.