Khuong Duy - 12 year old chess player with Grandmaster level

The new U12 World Champion Dau Khuong Duy was once rated by world number three player Hikaru Nakamura as being at the level of a Grandmaster.

In an online practice match with Nakamura a few weeks ago, Jiang Wei played 17 games, winning three and losing the rest. This is not a bad score considering that in the online blitz format, the Japanese-American is the world's top player, on par with former World Champion Magnus Carlsen. There were times when Nakamura won all 10 games in this format.

Dau Khuong Duy won the U12 World Championship in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in October 2023. Photo: FIDE

During the match, Nakamura had many compliments for Jiang Wei, especially after the games he lost. "It's not too much to say that he will become a Grandmaster (GM), just through these games," the 36-year-old said after his first defeat.

After Jiang Wei made a good move and then made Nakamura lose the second game, the world number three continued: "Overall, Jiang Wei has played at GM level. He just found a really good c1 move. There is no doubt that he will become a GM. But the question is whether he will have an Elo of around 2,600 or reach a higher level."

Grandmaster (GM) is the highest title awarded by FIDE to chess players. The condition is that they must compete in three tournaments (three standards), with a minimum of 27 games, each tournament achieving a performance equivalent to 2,600 Elo or higher. And the player's Elo must also reach 2,500 or higher to be awarded the title of GM.

There is another unofficial title called Super Grandmaster (SGM), usually reserved for players with Elo 2,700 or higher. The all-time Elo record belongs to Magnus Carlsen, at 2,882 in May 2014. Vietnam has only one player who has reached this SGM level, Le Quang Liem, with a peak of Elo 2,740. As for the 2,600 level, Vietnam has only two players who have achieved it, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son and Dao Thien Hai.

Khuong Duy was born in 2011 and learned to read and write before he was three years old. He started learning chess systematically in 2018 and won the U8 World Championship bronze medal in China in September 2019. That was also Vietnam's most recent world standard chess medal until he won the U12 gold medal at the tournament in Egypt on October 26.

Recognizing his talent from the beginning, his family oriented him to become a Chess King, and that was also Khuong Duy's wish. Every day, he spent about six hours studying chess, accumulating experience before participating in major tournaments. Quang Liem was the World Blitz Chess Champion in 2013, but in standard chess, he has never participated in Candidates. That is the tournament to select the challenger to the Chess King, so the gap between the Vietnamese player and the Chess King title is still far.

Khuong Duy at the international chess tournament in Hanoi in July 2022. Photo: Xuan Binh

Carlsen and many other masters also only participated in world tournaments until they were 12 years old, like Khuong Duy now. Since then, they have focused on earning International Master (IM) and GM qualifications, to become professional players. The advantage of young Grandmasters is that they have many opportunities to be invited to major tournaments, competing with masters. The youngest GM in history is Abhimanyu Mishra (USA) at the age of 12 years, four months and 25 days. History has only recorded 13 players becoming GMs before they turned 14, most of them masters.

It is time for Khuong Duy to pursue professional chess, as he has won an IM standard from the Bangkok Open in 2022. If he wins two more standards, and raises his current Elo rating of 2,299 to 2,400, he will become IM. Among the players still competing, Vietnam has 13 who are IM or higher.

At the age of 12 like Khuong Duy now, Quang Liem or Truong Son have never reached the Elo 2,300 mark, while the player born in 2011 has done this. The two top players in Vietnam both became GMs at the age of 15, and Khuong Duy still has more than two years to surpass his seniors. To do that, he needs to continue playing many qualifying tournaments abroad. The next two or three years could greatly affect his goal of becoming the King of Chess.

Khuong Duy is not the only young talent in Vietnam investing in chess. Two 14-year-old players, Pham Tran Gia Phuc and Bang Gia Huy, also have Elo ratings approaching 2,400, and are being invested in to participate in international tournaments to become IMs. The 13-year-old player is also approaching the 2,300 Elo mark, while Nguyen Nam Kiet's recent U12 World Cup runner-up achievement is also surprising because his Elo is less than 2,000. Vietnamese players all have the potential to reach world-class level, but need to be invested in the right direction to meet expectations.

Previously, Vietnam had Nguyen Anh Khoi win the world youth championship twice, at the U10 and U12 levels. However, Anh Khoi's dream is to become a doctor, and he is pursuing this field. At the age of 12, Khuong Duy won the national chess championship, and more importantly for the chess community, he wants to continue pursuing this sport.

Khuong Duy can recreate what Quang Liem or Truong Son achieved, if Nakamura's prediction is true. As for his dream of becoming the Chess King, perhaps, nothing is impossible.

Xuan Binh

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