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Chessmoso

CHESS prodigies are children who play chess so well that they are able to beat Masters and even Grandmasters, even at a very young age. Only a few sports can enable children to compete with adults on an equal footing and chess is one of them.

One measure of a chess prodigy is attaining the title of Grandmaster. Although I must admit that it has become easier nowadays due to the advent of training with computers and ratings inflation. Still, only a select few have attained GM status while they are still young.

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The youngest GMs now are Jorge Cori, Ray Robson and Anish Giri who are all 14 years old, with only a few months separating them. They became GMs this year, but that does not mean that they attained the GM title earlier than others. Here is an updated list of child prodigies and their respective ages when they became GM.

1.) Sergey Karjakin--12 years, 7 months, 0 days, 2.) Parimarjan Negi--13 years, 4 months, 22 days, 3.) Magnus Carlsen--13 years, 4 months, 27 days, 4.) Bu Xiangzhi--
13 years, 10 months, 13 days, 5.) Teimour Radjabov--14 years, 0 months, 14 days, 6.) Ruslan Ponomariov--14 years, 0 months, 17 days, 7. Wesley So--14 years, 1 month, 28 days, 8.) Etienne Bacrot--14 years, 2 months, 9.) Jorge Cori--14 years, 2 months, 10.) Maxime Vachier--Lagrave 14 years, 4 months, 11.) Péter Lékó--14 years, 4 months, 22 days, 12.) Hou Yifan--14 years, 6 months, 16 days, 13.) Anish Giri--14 years, 7 months, 2 days, 14.) Yuriy Kuzubov--14 years, 7 months, 12 days
15.) Dariusz Swiercz--14 years, 7 months, 29 days 16.) Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son--14 years, 10 months 17.) Ray Robson--14 Years 11 Months 16 days 18.) Fabiano Caruana--14 years, 11 months, 20 days 19.) Humpy Koneru--15 years, 1 month, 27 days, 20.) Hikaru Nakamura--15 years, 2 months, 19 days 21.) Pentala Harikrishna--15 years, 3 months, 5 days, 22.) Judit Polgar--15 years, 4 months, 28 days, 23.) Alejandro Ramirez--15 years, 5 months, 14 days, 24.) Bobby Fischer--15 years, 6 months, 1 day.

A significant honor is that Wesley So is the strongest 14- and 15-year-old in chess history.

TAL MEMORIAL. The Tal Memorial, held in Moscow in honor of Mikhael Tal, has just concluded. It is the strongest tournament of the year, and at Category 21 (average Elo 2764), is also one of the strongest of all time.

While there are comparable Category 21 tournaments like Bilbao and Nanjing this year, the Tal Memorial involved the participation of 10 elite players.

The players are Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739).

Kramnik won the brutally strong tournament, with 6.0/9 . Ivanchuk and Carlsen shared second and third, with the young Norwegian going to number one in the world in the unofficial live rankings.

RESULTS of the just-concluded 2009 Lapu-Lapu Fiesta Chess Tournament last Nov. 14, 2009 at the Lapu-Lapu Auditorium: 1.) Felix Shaun Balbona 2.) Rhenzi Kyle Sevillano 3.) Marq Gabriel Balbona, 4.) Jasper Ycong, 5.) Neil Gilig.

The Seniors winner was Amado Olea followed by Loyd Rubillos, Ryan Rubillos and Ramil Resuera.

NOTICE. My e-mail frankpestano@yahoo.com has been hacked and all my contacts have been sent messages asking for money. As I cannot contact all of them mainly due to their large number, kindly ignore all messages coming from this e-mail.

My new e-mail address is found at the bottom of this column. May the hacker rest in peace. I just lost a 12-year-old e-mail address and all mails I saved thru the years.

(boypestano@gmail.com,www.chessmoso.blogspot.com)