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Story from Chessbase.
Can you imagine that you may have to address the boy in this picture respectfully as "grandmaster"? 12-year-old Sergei Karjakin (learn to pronounce it now: car-yack-kin!) has just gained his second GM norm and looks poised to gain his title well before his 13th birth in January 2003. That would make him the only person in the world to become a grandmaster and second a world champion before reaching his teens!
The latest wunderkind came to the attention of the international press when it was discovered that Ruslan Ponomariov, who won the FIDE world championship early this year, had an 11-year-old player as his official second. Seriously. It was the Ukrainian IM Sergei Karjakin, who later turned up at the Aeroflot tournament in Moscow in January and dutifully chalked up a GM norm there.
Young Sergei then played at FIDE Grand Prix in Dubai, where he went out in the first round against Veselin Topalov, the world number 8 player. To be fair, his boss, FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov also suffered a similar fate at the hand of FIDE world women's champion Zhu Chen.
On May 16, 2002 John Henderson reported that the Sergei has gained his second GM norm. Playing in the category 8 (2427) Alushta-100 tournament in the Ukraine, he scored 9.5/13 to share first equal in the tournament with GM Evgenij Miroshnichenko.
On August 20, 2002, Ukraine Chess Online reported that Sergey Karjakin has fulfilled his last GM norm. He did so at the international chess tournament in Sudak, a town on the Crimea Peninsula, Ukraine. This makes him the youngest GM in the chess history. His FIDE rating is 2523.
The youngest GM's in history:
Bobby Fischer 15 years 6 months, 1 day Judit Polgar 15 years 4 months, 28 days Peter Leko 14 years, 4 months, 22 days Etienne Bacrot 14 years, 2 months, 0 days Ruslan Ponomaryov 14 years, 0 months, 17 days Teimour Radjabov 14 years, 0 months, 14 days Bu Xiangzhi 13 years, 10 months, 13 days Sergei Karjakin 12 years, 7 months, 0 days As John Henderson wrote: "There surely can't be many schoolboys out there who can claim to have been a grandmaster and an official trainer to a world champion during a title match before reaching their teens!