Norway: Eight-year old Roman Shogdzhiev's stunning performances earned him praise from his idol, GM Magnus Carlsen after defeating two formidable Grandmasters and secured draws against three others in the World Rapid and Blitz tournament.
Shogdzhiev first faced Uzbekistan’s GM Jakhongir Vakhidov, an Olympiad champion, in round one and then drew against seasoned GMs Aleksey Dreev and GM Gadir Guseinov in rounds two and four.
His next victim was GM Johan-Sebastian Christiansen, who told Norwegian TV: "I had never even heard of him before—maybe I should have. It's pretty crazy to be that good when you are eight years old. When I was at that age, I had barely learned the rules."
Shogdzhiev, the world under 8 champion, finished the rapid competition on a staggering 5.5/13 score and a rating performance of 2429, gaining 182 rating points. He was also keen to beat experienced GMs Kirill Shevchenko, Alan Pichot and Pranav Anand.
In 2023, Shogdzhiev, who was seven years old then, won the World Under 8 Champion (with 11/11), Asian Youth Under 8 Blitz Champion (with 9/9) and European Youth Under 8 Champion. The chess prodigy hails from Elista in the Russian Republic of Kalmykia, a place which has witnessed many chess events in the nineties. However, his family has already moved near Russia's capital Moscow.
The European Youth Under 8 Champion lost almost a hundred classical rating points in the Asian Under 8 Championship in December and, with a classical rating of 1802, is ranked only eighth in the world among players born in 2015 or later. However, he dominates in rapid (2224) and blitz (2198), ahead of another eight-year-old prodigy, Britain's WCM Bodhana Sivanandan, who dazzled in the recent European Blitz Championship.
Shogdzhiev wasn't the only kid to beat a Grandmaster in Uzbekistan. 10-year-old FM Faustino Oro, the youngest ever to break 2300, beat Russian Khismatullin in the World Rapid Championship.
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