Yağız Kaan Erdoğmuş

Yağız Kaan Erdoğmuş (born 3 June 2011)^[2] is a Turkish chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, he was awarded the International Master title prior to turning 12, becoming the youngest individual from Turkey to achieve that title.^[3] In 2024, he became the fourth-youngest grandmaster in history, and, later that year, the youngest player ever to reach a rating of 2600 ELO points. As of November 2025, Erdoğmuş is the youngest grandmaster in the world.^[4]

Erdoğmuş was born in Bursa, Turkey^[5] to parents Gülsüm and Selahattin Erdoğmuş.^[6] Introduced to chess by his kindergarten teacher, he started playing the game at the age of 6.^[6]

In 2018, Erdoğmuş won the U-8 category at the 6th Çeşme International Open Chess Tournament 2018, and won the same age-group category in the 2019 Turkey Youth Chess Championship.^[2] He won the U-8 European Chess Championship in 2019, winning all his 8 games and having secured the title before the final round.^[7][8]

He attained the International Master title during the 3rd FIDE Council in 2022, following a commendable performance at the Svetozar Gligoric Memorial Chess Tournament in Serbia.^[1][9] The same year, he won the ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship online tournament.^[10] The following year, at the same tournament, he ranked 9th with 7.5 points in 10 games,^[11] while he also participated in advanced training and competitions in 2023.

In April 2024, his results at the Grenke Chess Festival advanced Erdoğmuş to the Grandmaster level, making him the 4th-youngest GM of all time.^[12]

In May 2024, Erdoğmuş reached a rating of 2569, breaking Hungarian GM Judit Polgár's 35-year-old record as the highest ever rated player before the age of 13,^[13] while Polgar remained the highest ever ranked 12-year-old.^[14]

In July 2024, he won both U13 and U16 ChessKid Youth Championship tournaments,^[15] while, in October of the same year, he became the youngest player ever to reach a 2600 rating, at the age of 13 years, 3 months and 28 days, beating by nearly a year the previous record, held since 1989 also by Polgar.^[16]

In May 2025, he tied at 2nd place with Sweden's top GM Nils Grandelius in the TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament,^[17] and, in July, he faced 49-year-old Russian GM Peter Svidler in a "Clash of Generations," a match of 6 classical games and 12 blitz games. Erdoğmuş won the classical portion of the match with 4–2 points, scoring 3 victories, while losing heavily in the blitz portion by 2–10 points.^[18] The outcome of the match propelled Erdoğmuş to the Top 100 in classical rating at the age of 14, making him the 2nd-youngest player in history to make it at that age into the Top 100, behind only Judit Polgar who had made it at the age of 12.^[19]

In the September 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss tournament, held in Samarkand, he defeated with Black 19-year-old Indian GM Aditya Mittal in a game characterized by Leonard Barden as "immortal." Erdoğmuş allowed his opponent to promote to a 2nd queen on the board and then sacrificed his own Queen, in a combination ending with a pawn giving checkmate in its first move.^[20] In the same tournament, he played a 190-move game against Uzbek GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, drawing a Queen and pawn versus queen endgame through the 50-move rule. This became the longest game in Grand Swiss history,^{[n 1]} surpassing the 157-mover Grandelius vs. Kuzubov from the 10th round in 2021.^[21] Observing the Turkish GM's performance in the Grand Swiss, former world champion Magnus Carlsen, commented that "Erdogmus is really, really good, at almost unprecedented levels at that age,"^[20] while American Grandmaster and streamer Ben Finegold predicted that Erdoğmuş would be world champion within eight years.^[22]

• Ediz Gürel
• Emre Can

• "The 'Turkish Immortal': Aditya Mittal vs Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus". Chess Games. 9 September 2025. Retrieved 4 November 2025.