Chess: 12-year-old becomes youngest chess Grandmaster

Abhimanyu Mishra has become the youngest ever chess Grandmaster at the age of 12 years and 4 months old

Abhimanyu Mishra has broken the record for the youngest ever chess Grandmaster at just 12 years and 4 months old.

The record was previously held by Sergey Karjakin, who took the title at the age of 12 years and 7 months, in 2002.

Abhimanyu, who is from the US, was already the youngest international master when he was just 10 years and 9 months old.

After playing many chess matches in Budapest, Abhimanyu and his family now want the young player to break records in his teen years, by gaining the Strong Grandmaster and Elite Grandmaster titles.

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Abhimanyu first learned to play chess when he was just two and a half years old and went on to become the youngest US expert at the age of seven.

His campaign had been delayed for the better part of a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but after flying to Budapest with his father he competed in the Grandmaster and International Master competitions.

Abhimanyu secured his third Grandmaster norm, achieving a performance level of over 2,600.

Grandmaster norms are awards given to players for their top-level performances in chess games, and to earn a Grandmaster title you must win 3. You must also achieve a 2500 Elo rating, which is given out by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs, which monitors the competitions worldwide.

Chess is one of the oldest games around, with some suggesting people played it as early as the 6th century AD - that's a long time ago

Abhimanyu posted onto his twitter: "Finally checkmated the biggest opponent (ongoing pandemic) which stopped me for 14 months. Thanks everybody for all your love and support. Looking forward for World cup".

The previous record holder was Russian player Sergey Karjakin, who broke the record when he was 12 years and 7 months old and held the record for 19 years.

Sergey Karjakin said: "Yes, I am a little sad that I lost the record, I don't want to lie, but at the same time I can only congratulate him and it's no problem. I hope that he will go on to become one of the top chess players and it will be just a nice start to his big career".