Richárd Rapport – grandmaster at thirteen

by ChessBase
3/5/2010 – Actually at thirteen years and eleven months, but still according to our calculations the fifth youngest player in history to gain the title. Richárd did it in spite of a last-round loss to chess legend Lajos Portisch, who is almost 60 years older than the lad. The tournament was held in Hungary and was won by Alexander Beliavsky. Congratulations to the new GM.

ChessBase 17 - Mega package - Edition 2024 ChessBase 17 - Mega package - Edition 2024

It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.

More...

2010 évi Gotth' Art Kupa

The Gotth' Art Cup 2010 took place from February 22 to March 4, 2010. It was won by Alexander Beliavsky with 6.5/9, half a point ahead of Lajos Portisch and Richárd Rapport. And that was the real news: the 13-year-old Richárd is the latest chess prodigy to make a GM title. He went into the final round as the tournament leader, half a point ahead of Alexander Beliavsky.


In the final round Richárd Rapport lost to chess legend Lajos Portisch, but still scored 6.0/9 and achieved a full GM norm, which required a score of over 5.76 points. His performance: 2633.

Final standings:

Richárd Rapport was born on the 25th of March 1996 in Szombathely, located close to the Austrian border. His mother’s name is Erzsébet Mórocz, his father is Tamás Rapport, both economists by profession. They reside at a village called Sé, three kms from Szombathely.

Richárd learnt the basics of chess at the age of four from his father. Chess was just one game amongst many others – the lad especially enjoyed strategical games like Warcraft. His chess career started at the age of nine. In 2006 he took third place in the Hungarian Youth Championship U-10, first place in the 2006 European Union Championship U-10, and first in the 2007 Rapid Hungarian Championship. In the Aschach Open 2007 he defeats his first GM opponent. There followed a first place at the Hungarian Youth Championship 2008, a second place at the 2009 Harkány Hungarian Open Championship (this earned him an IM-norm), a third place at the 2009 Mitropa Cup. Richárd won a silver medal playing for Csuti-Hydrocomp in the Hungarian Team Championship 2009.

His father and the family do everything to support Richárd, who is a private student at the Dési Huber elementary school in Szombathely. He is doing well in his school activity, studying English and German as additional languages. Richárd's trainers are GM Péter Lukács, GM Róbert Ruck, GM József Pintér. András Flumbort is his manager. During a visit of Anand in Budapest Richárd had a short conversation with the World Champion. Apparently Anand said something deeply motivating for the lad, so that the GM title came quickly after that.

Youngest grandmasters in history

No.
 Player
Nat.
years
months
days
year
 Sergey Karjakin
UKR
12
7
0
2002
 Parimarjan Negi
IND
13
3
22
2006
 Magnus Carlsen
NOR
13
3
27
2004
 Bu Xiangzhi
CHN
13
10
13
1999
 Richard Rapport
HUN
13
11
15
2010
 Teimour Radjabov
AZE
14
0
14
2001
 Ruslan Ponomaryov 
UKR
14
0
17
1997
 Wesley So
PHI
14
1
28
2007
 Etienne Bacrot
FRA
14
2
0
1997
10 
 Jorge Cori
PER
14
2
0
2009
11 
 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
FRA
14
4
0
2005
12 
 Peter Leko
HUN
14
4
22
1994
13 
 Hou Yifan
CHN
14
6
2
2008
14 
 Anish Giri
RUS
14
7
2
2009
15 
 Yuri Kuzubov
UKR
14
7
12
2004
16 
 Dariusz Swiercz
POL
14
7
29
2009
17 
 Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son 
VIE
14
10
0
2004
18
 Ray Robson
USA
14
11
16
2009
19
 Fabiano Caruana
ITA
14
11
20
2007
20
 Koneru Humpy
IND
15
1
27
2002
21
 Hikaru Nakamura
USA
15
2
19
2003
22
 Pentala Harikrishna
IND
15
3
5
2001
23
 Judit Polgar
HUN
15
4
28
1991
24
 Alejandro Ramirez
CRI
15
5
14
2003
25
 Bobby Fischer
USA
15
6
1
1958

Copyright ChessBase


Links

To read, replay and analyse the PGN games we adivse you to download the free PGN reader ChessBase Light. This program also gives you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.


Reports about chess: tournaments, championships, portraits, interviews, World Championships, product launches and more.

Discuss

Rules for reader comments

 
 

Not registered yet? Register