Yağz Kaan Erdoğmuş – that is how you write his name in Turkish – was introduced to chess by his kindergarten teacher when he was six years old. He showed great talent for the game, and was soon winning national and international tournaments. In 2019 he won the U8 European Championship, scoring 8.0/8 games, and in August 2021 Yagiz was ranked No. 1 in the World U10 Rankings. At the same time he was recognized as the No. 1 U11 player in the world.
Before turning twelve Yagiz became Turkey’s youngest IM. In April 2024 he became the fourth-youngest grandmaster in the world at the Grenke Chess Open and Classic.
Youngest grandmasters in history
| Abhimanyu Mishra | 12 years, 4 months, 25 days |
| Sergey Karjakin | 12 years, 7 months, 0 days |
| Gukesh Domaraju | 12 years, 7 months, 17 days |
| Yağz Kaan Erdoğmuş | 12 years, 9 months, 29 days |
You can view the development of this lad on our ChessBase Players utility. Or if you have a ChessBase Account you simply click on “Players”.
There you get pictures, Elo progress data, white and black successes, favourite and least favourite opponents, strongest wins, the white and black openings repertoire and samples of recent games. Instant information – click on the screen shot for Yagiz’s portrait:
And here are the nine games that earned Yagiz his final GM norm at the GRENKE Open A:
Incidentally, the German Chess Federation wanted Yagiz to represent Germany and offered him scholarship incentives. However, the lad decided to compete for Turkey.
