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

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13 year-old Grandmaster Wei Yi

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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

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Here are the Reykjavik games that have earned Wei Yi the Grandmaster title:

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Wei Yi photos via the official website. Games via TWIC.