Nodirbek Abdusattorov, 13, became the second youngest grandmaster in history by winning his third grandmaster norm. His coach noted his exceptional talent and ability to memorize game positions.
At just 13 years, 1 month and 11 days old, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, born in Uzbekistan’s capital city of Tashkent, became the second youngest grandmaster in history by earning his third grandmaster norm on Sunday, October 29, 2017. Only Sergey Karjakin won the title at a slightly younger age.
At the Chigorin Memorial, Abdusattorov was present from Saturday 21 to Sunday 29 of the same year in St. Petersburg. During the tournament, he achieved a score of 6.5/9 points, which allowed him to surpass 2500 points and obtain his third grandmaster norm. To achieve this, he needed to have a minimum performance of 2600 points, but his ELO performance during the tournament was 2629 points. It is important to mention that in order to calculate his norm, he adjusted his opponent’s ELO in the first round from 2058 to 2200 points, which would result in a performance ELO of 2644.
In an interview, Dmitry Kayumov of Uzbekistan, Abdusattorov’s coach, shared his opinion of Nodirbek’s exceptional talent. After 40 years training in different countries and training many international grandmasters, Kayumov admitted that he has never seen a talent like Nodirbek. He highlighted the young man’s athletic qualities, his dedication to work, his exceptional memory and his ability to memorize game positions. In addition, he highlighted something unusual: Nodirbek is not afraid of the opponent.
The game that allowed him to obtain the third norm and become Grandmaster, the highest title awarded by the International Chess Federation, we present it to you:
1.c4 e6 2.Nf3 Cf6 3.Nc3 d5 4.e3 Ae7 5.b3 c5 6.cxd5 Cxd5 7.Bb2 0-0 8.Dc2 b6 9.Cxd5 exd5 10.d4 Ae6 11.Bd3 h6 12.0-0 Nc6 13.Ae2 Tc8 14.Dd2 cxd4 15.Nxd4 Nxd4 16.Axd4 Bf6 17.Tac1 Axd4 18.Dxd4 De7 19.b4 Tc7 20.Aa6 Td8 21.a3 Dd6 22.Tfd1 Tdd7 23.Txc7 Txc7 24.Bb5 Df8 25.h3 Dc8 26.Ae2 Tc1 27.Bf3 Dc3 28.Dxc3 Txc3 29.Axd5 Axd5 Axd5 30.Txd5 Txa3 31.g4 a5 32.bxa5 bxa5 33.Td8+ Rh7 34.Td7 Rg8 35.Ta7 Ta1+ 36.Rg2 a4 37.h4 a3 38.h5 g5 39.hxg6 fxg6 40.f4 a2 41.e4 h5 42.gxh5 gxh5 43.e5 h4 44.e6 h3+ 45.Rh2 Rf8 46.f5 Tf1 47.Txa2 Txf5 48.Rxh3 Te5 49.Ta6 Re7 50.Rg4 Txe6 51.Txe6+ Rxe6 ½-½.
