Faustino Oro is the world’s youngest grandmaster — and the second youngest ever

The International Chess Federation has officially awarded the grandmaster title to 12-year-old Faustino Oro of Argentina. He is now the youngest grandmaster in the world, and the second youngest in the history of the title: when he completed his final norm he was 12 years, 6 months and 26 days old.

Why the title took until now

The chess part was finished back in the spring. Oro secured his third and final GM norm on 9 May 2026 at the Sardinia World Chess Festival in Italy. But a title does not exist the moment a norm is made — it has to be ratified by the FIDE Council. Oro’s application was approved at the Council’s second online meeting of the year on 23 August 2026, and the decision was published five days later.

The previous youngest grandmaster in the world was Turkey’s Yagiz Kaan Erdoğmuş, who took the title in April 2024 at 12 years, 9 months and 29 days. He is 14 now, and the unofficial status passes to Oro.

Three norms in eight months

• September 2025, Madrid. Legends & Prodigies: 7½/9 undefeated, a first norm and a first live rating above 2500.

• December 2025, Buenos Aires. Szmetan–Giardelli Masters: 5½/9 for the second norm, rating up to 2516.

• May 2026, Sardinia. 6/9 and 16th place. The norm was mathematically safe after round eight, when Oro beat IM Bartłomiej Niedbała and pushed his performance rating to 2631 — the last-round loss to Ian Nepomniachtchi no longer mattered.

“It’s a great achievement for him. He was quite close in the Aeroflot Open, and today he played quite well,” — Ian Nepomniachtchi after the final round in Sardinia.

Mishra’s record survived

Three months before Sardinia, Oro was one win away from the all-time record. At the Aeroflot Open in Moscow (28 February – 5 March 2026) he needed a final-round win with Black against 19-year-old GM Aleksey Grebnev. He lost a hard-fought game, and with it the record.

Abhimanyu Mishra’s mark — 12 years, 4 months and 25 days, set in June 2021 — still stands. The gap between him and Oro is under two months.

The youngest grandmasters in history

Player	Age at the title	Year
Abhimanyu Mishra (USA)	12 years 4 months 25 days	2021
Faustino Oro (Argentina)	12 years 6 months 26 days	2026
Sergey Karjakin	12 years 7 months	2002
Gukesh Dommaraju (India)	12 years 7 months 17 days	2019
Yagiz Kaan Erdoğmuş (Turkey)	12 years 9 months 29 days	2024

Who Faustino Oro is

Oro was born on 14 October 2013 in Buenos Aires. He learned the moves at six, in May 2020, when his father sat him down at the board during lockdown. Argentina calls him the “Messi of chess”; online he goes by Chessi.

The records came quickly:

• youngest player ever to reach a 2300 rating;

• international master at 10 years, 8 months and 16 days (June 2024) — a record at the time;

• first player under 12 to cross 2500 (October 2025);

• youngest player ever to win a World Cup match: in November 2025 he knocked out Croatia’s Ante Brkić in round one before losing to Vidit Gujrathi in round two.

A separate thread of his story runs through Magnus Carlsen. In May 2024 a ten-year-old Oro beat the Norwegian in an online bullet game, and the clip went around the world. On 24 August 2026 the two played an eight-game 3+0 blitz match on Chess.com: Carlsen took it 5½–2½ with four wins, three draws and one loss — that loss being Oro’s first blitz win over him.

On the September FIDE list Oro is rated 2537, a personal best and seventh in Argentina. On Chess.com he is above 3300 in blitz, inside the platform’s top ten.

Right now: his first Olympiad

Oro is making his Olympiad debut in Samarkand (15–27 September 2026) — and not as a reserve: at 12 he is Argentina’s board one, ahead of Diego Flores, Sandro Mareco, Fernando Peralta and Federico Pérez Ponsa. He opened with a 22-move win on the top board against Kenya.

Standings and pairings are on our Olympiad page; more on the players of today and yesterday is in the Players section.