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Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, who held Gukesh to draw today, once beat Magnus Carlsen in 41 seconds in blitz game

14-year-old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus managed to hold Gukesh to a 46-move draw with black pieces. It was a game where Gukesh applied relentless pressure in the middle game, but eventually, Erdogmus found resources to claim a draw. It’s the kind of escape that would have made even Gukesh proud.

Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, a 14-year-old prodigy from Turkey, will take on world champion Gukesh today at FIDE Grand Swiss. (PHOTO: FIDE/Michal Walusza)

When world champion Gukesh Dommaraju took his seat to play against 14-year-old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus in the second round of the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament in Samarkand, the 19-year-old probably would have felt as if he was looking at a younger version of himself. Having become the classical world champion at the age of 18, Gukesh has already shown that the era of the teenage prodigies is upon us. But the Turkish teen is already eliciting gasps for his exploits on the chess board at a much younger age.

On Friday came one of those moments in the Turkish grandmaster’s fledgling career: he managed to hold Gukesh to a 46-move draw with black pieces. It was a game where Gukesh applied relentless pressure in the middle game, but eventually, Erdogmus found resources to claim a draw. It’s the kind of escape that would have made even Gukesh proud. After all, the Indian has steadily built a rep for grinding out favourable results from disadvantageous positions on the board.

By move 24 (24…b5), Gukesh had grabbed control of the game. While both players had equal material on the board, Gukesh had seven additional minutes on his clock and his king had entered the heart of the battle in the centre of the board with the rest of the foot soldiers. By move 32 (32… Kc6), the writing was on the wall. Just like Gukesh would have in a similar position, Erdogmus kept battling. Eventually, it was Gukesh who blundered twice — once on move 34 (34. Kc2 instead of the engine suggested 34.Ng6) and on move 40 (40. Bxg5 instead of engine’s 40. Nf6) — to allow the Turkish GM find an escape route.

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INTERACTIVE: How Gukesh was held to draw by Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus

Erdogmus’ rapid rise

Gukesh is currently the third youngest player to become a grandmaster in history, getting to the title at the age of 12 years, 7 months, 17 days. Right behind him is Erdogmus, getting there at the age of 12 years, 9 months, 29 days.

“I’m kind of impressed at the way he played today. He did not have an easy game and it was clear that it was not comfortable. He was pressed (by Gukesh) from move 15 almost till move 39. He fought. He didn’t collapse. To make this kind of a draw against a 2760 player — a world champion with a strong character — there is a lot ahead of him,” said chess legend Judit Polgar on the live stream commentary for Chess24.

World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju and 14-year-old Turkish prodigy Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus at the Grand Swiss chess tournament. (PHOTOS: FIDE via Michal Walusza)

The Turkish phenom at 13 was already the second-youngest player in history to break into the top 100 ranking list (left behind only by Judit Polgar, who reached world number-55 as a 12-year-old in 1989 with a 2555 rating). He got there just last month, reaching a rating of 2642. Erdogmus was also the youngest grandmaster to touch the 2600 FIDE rating threshold.

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The speed at which he is rising is not the only thing that’s impressive about the 14-year-old. In July, Erdogmus pitted his wits against Peter Svidler in a standalone contest christened the Clash of Generations. The event saw the 14-year-old take on Svidler in a combined classical and blitz match. There, the Russian won the blitz portion 10-2. But Erdogmus claimed the classical portion 4-2 with three victories. In the fourth game of the classical portion, Erdogmus unleashed a tactical masterclass and won in just 22 moves. The game saw him offer up a rook sacrifice even though Svidler was playing the Grunfeld, his insignia as a player.

When Erdogmus beat Carlsen

Turkish media went ga-ga over Erdogmus last year because he defeated Magnus Carlsen in a blitz game in 41 seconds. That conquest over Carlsen was not the only time the Turkish prodigy had beaten the five-time world champion, who is particularly fearsome in blitz.

See how a 13-year-old checkmated Carlsen in just 41 seconds

In the first round of the Grand Swiss tournament on Thursday, when Erdogmus was battling against Aleksandra Goryachkina (a prodigy herself back in the day), grandmaster David Howell, on the Chess.com commentary, offered a tale of what happened when Carlsen faced Erdogmus in an online blitz match.

Once we were at a party. Magnus suddenly disappeared for an hour-and-a-half and he came back with his face looking like a storm.

“I know he has beaten Magnus many times in blitz on Chess.com,” Howell said on the live stream with Polgar listening in. “Once we were at a party — I’m not sure I should be telling this story — but Magnus suddenly disappeared for an hour-and-a-half and he came back with his face looking like a storm. It was because he had been playing a blitz match on his phone against Yagiz and it hadn’t gone well. Yagiz is super-fast and super-strong.”

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Howell said that Erdogmus was “a bit like Arjun Erigaisi in chess style”. “He can play positionally if he wants to… (but) he plays very aggressive and direct.”

Erdogmus went on to take down Goryachkina, who is among the two female players to compete in the 116-player open section at Grand Swiss rather than in Women’s Grand Swiss.