Second GM norm puts 11-year-old Roman Shogdzhiev on course for historic achievement
Eleven-year-old Roman Shogdzhiev has earned his second grandmaster norm after scoring 6/9 at the Serbian Super League, where he represented Partizan Belgrade. The Russian youngster gained 26 rating points and now needs one more norm to secure the GM title. With eight months remaining to break Abhimanyu Mishra's age record, Shogdzhiev has a realistic chance of becoming the youngest grandmaster in history.
Photo: Eteri Kublashvili
One norm and 20 rating points away from GM title
Eleven-year-old Roman Shogdzhiev has taken another step towards becoming the youngest grandmaster in chess history. The Russian prodigy earned his second GM norm while representing Partizan Belgrade in the Serbian Super Liga, where he faced experienced opposition on the team's top board. With two norms secured and his rating approaching 2500, Shogdzhiev is now within reach of the age record set by Abhimanyu Mishra in 2021.
Shogdzhiev scored 6 points from 9 games in Serbia, collecting four wins, four draws and a single defeat. He achieved a tournament performance rating (TPR) of 2662 and gained 26.1 rating points. He did not play in the final two rounds of the competition. A second consecutive strong showing at the European Club Cup, where he scored 4½/7 on board four for Elektroprivreda, which left his live rating at 2484.1 Elo points (he is currently ranked 19th among players aged 16 or younger).
In Serbia, the youngster's results included victories over three grandmasters rated above 2600: Bulgaria's Ivan Cheparinov (2631), India's Bharath Subramaniyam (2603) and Singapore's Tin Jingyao (2602). He also drew with eight-time Hungarian champion GM Ferenc Berkes. His only defeat came against Indian IM Santhosh Parvathareddy.
The result in Serbia follows Shogdzhiev's first GM norm, achieved at the Asian Individual Championship in Ulaanbaatar in June. On that occasion, he entered the tournament as the 50th seed and scored 6/9 points, remaining undefeated against six grandmasters. At 11 years, 4 months and 1 day, he became the youngest player ever to obtain a GM norm.
In May 2025, Shogdzhiev became the youngest international master in history, earning the title at 10 years, 3 months and 21 days. His training is overseen by a group of grandmasters led by former Russian champion Evgeny Tomashevsky. Leonard Barden noted in his latest column for The Guardian. He wrote:
"For several years now his team of coaches led by the experienced GM Evgeny Tomashevsky has organised periodic blitz tournaments in Moscow where the youngster could hone his speed skills against strong rivals."
The next target is the grandmaster title itself. Shogdzhiev still needs one more norm and must reach the 2500 rating threshold. The record for the youngest grandmaster currently belongs to GM Abhimanyu Mishra from the United States, who completed the title requirements in June 2021 at 12 years, 4 months and 25 days. More recently, Argentina's Faustino Oro became the second-youngest grandmaster in history, obtaining the title at 12 years, 6 months and 26 days.
Shogdzhiev has until late June 2027 to improve on Mishra's record. There is also the possibility of reaching an unprecedented milestone: should he fulfil the remaining requirements before his 12th birthday on 4 February 2027, he would become the first player to earn the grandmaster title before turning twelve.
The Russian is part of a generation of young players who have been collecting titles and breaking age records at a remarkable pace. Another player born in 2015, England's Bodhana Sivanandan, recently became the youngest female international master in history, surpassing Judit Polgar's longstanding record.
Read the original article published on ChessBase.
About the author
Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done on chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
