The New Indian Express ·
2900 Elo rating will be tough but I can do it: Chess prodigy Erdogmus
BENGALURU: Around 5.00 PM on Sunday, there was an interesting dynamic unfolding on Board 3 in the match between PBG Alaskan Knights and CheQ Mumba Masters. It was, in isolation, a match between a 15-year-old and somebody almost thrice his age. Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus vs. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. But, in essence, it was a contest between student and teacher. Not just any student, though. Within the wider chess community, Erdogmus has been held as the game's newest thing for at least the last three years. When he was 14, Magnus Carlsen had said Erdogmus was 'the best 14-year-old chess has ever seen'.
When Erdogmus was in Goa to play in the World Cup, a few cameras seemed to shadow him whenever he was outside the confines of his room. It got to such a point that the organisers had put up an invisible perimeter around the precocious Turkish teen whose ambitions are already positively Everestian.
During an interaction with select media a day before the Global Chess League (GCL), the wunderkind from Bursa opined that he had it within him to scale 2900, a rating that even the likes of Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand and Garry Kasparov failed to achieve (2900 is considered to be this sort of mythical chess landmark). "Yes, 2900 will be tough but I can do it," he said. "I think Magnus is the best player ever, but he couldn't reach 2900. I'm not feeling the pressure now, because it's so early, I have to reach 2750 first, and I have other goals too."
