At 14, Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus is a baby-faced assassin of the chessboard

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“The kid is just insanely strong. I don’t know how you can be this good at chess at 14,” remarked Van Foreest a day after his loss to Erdogmus. “I made one stupid move and then completely collapsed in time trouble because I wasn’t used to it yet. I did some really dumb things, but in general, he played a really fine game. I don’t know where I was when I was 14, but I don’t think there was anyone at this level ever at that age. He also beat me last year when he was 13 in the European Championships, and I lost to him in the World Rapid Championship, so he already has a pretty good score against me.”

Like an AI model constantly consuming information to become stronger each passing week, Erdogmus has been growing in chess stature at a dizzying pace. As van Foreest pointed out, just two years back, when they played, the Dutchman had managed to win easily. Since then, he’s not managed to put a single stressful crease on the forehead of the Turkish prodigy.

Magnus Carslen vs Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus at FIDE World Rapid Championship last year. (FIDE/Anna Shtourman)

A measure of just how strong he’s grown is that in eight rounds at the ongoing Tata Steel Chess tournament, Erdogmus, the youngest player in the field in the masters section, has lost just once, to World Cup winner Javokhir Sindarov. Besides the two wins over Erigaisi and Van Foreest, he’s held some of this generation’s finest chess players — Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Aravindh Chithambaram, Hans Niemann, Vincent Keymer and Praggnanandhaa R — to draws at Wijk.

The Tata Steel Chess tournament is not the first time the world has seen Erdogmus’ full range. At the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament last year, he defeated Aleksandra Goryachkina and Levon Aronian, besides holding Gukesh, Keymer, Abdusattorov, his own coach Shakhriyar Mamedyarov to draws.

Attends school

What’s even more remarkable is that unlike the generation of Indian prodigies that came before him, Erdogmus still attends school and it’s only on weekends that he can give his undivided attention to chess. A viral video from a few months back showed him returning to school after a chess tournament only to be mobbed by what seemed like his entire school.

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“During the day I go to school if I am not playing in tournaments. After I get back, sometimes I have to finish my homework and then I can focus on my chess for maybe four hours. From the time I was seven or eight years of age, I would focus on chess only after coming home from school,” Erdogmus had told The Indian Express during the FIDE World Cup in Goa last year. “On the weekends, when I don’t have school, I can work on chess for seven to eight hours. It’s when I travel for tournaments that I completely focus on chess.”

Erdogmus’ tryst with chess started when he was in kindergarten. Six years later, he was already a grandmaster, the hardest official title in chess. Search his name on the internet, and the headlines that pop up look like a career highlight reel of a veteran who’s spent decades in the sport.

‘Erdogmus becomes youngest player to reach 2.600 rating, passing Judit Polgar’s 35-year-old record’

‘Erdogmus becomes youngest player to break into top 100 rankings’

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‘Erdogmus becomes the highest-rated 12-year-old in history’

Beyond the records too, Erdogmus has been name checked by some of the greatest chess players in history.

“He’s an incredible player. The best 14-year-old that the world has ever seen,” Magnus Carlsen proclaimed in December after the FIDE World Rapid Championship, where again he had defeated Erigaisi (who went on to claim bronze) and Nihal Sarin besides holding former world rapid champion Abdusattorov to another draw.

Carlsen’s praise had come after he had prevailed over Erdogmus in their own battle at the World Rapid Championship, but in the past, Carlsen was once beaten in a blitz game in 41 seconds by the Turkish wunderkind.

“Yagiz is the superstar of superstars,” world No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura had once said in a video on his YouTube handle. “He’s also given me a lot of trouble in recent times when I played him at blitz. He is only 13 years old and he is only going to improve and all I can say is that the kids are coming for those of us who have been around for a very long time. And frankly it’s really inspiring to see.”