Samunenkov and Erdogmus receive wild cards for FIDE Grand Swiss 2023

The world’s strongest Swiss-system chess event, FIDE Grand Swiss, is set to be played on the Isle of Man from October 23 to November 6, 2023. The tournament is the gathering of the world’s top guns with two FIDE Candidates spots on stake, an opportunity to take home part of the USD 600,000 combined prize fund, and a perfect testing ground for young talents.

At the end of July, we announced that 100 players had already confirmed their participation in the Grand Swiss and 40 players in the Women’s Grand Swiss. However, wild cards are still being distributed, and we’re happy to announce that two of them will go to the exceptional young talents, International Masters 14-year-old Ihor Samunenkov from Ukraine and 12-year-old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus from Turkey.

IM Ihor Samunenkov made headlines in 2021 when at the age of 12, he became the Ukrainian Champion, not in his age group, but an overall one! Currently rated 2515, Ihor is the world’s number two among players under 14 after GM Abhimanyu Mishra, who is already on the list of Grand Swiss participants.

12-year-old IM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus from Turkey is also well-known in the world of chess. World Champion U8 returned on the radars with his post-pandemic raise of nearly 500 rating points in a little over a year. With 2483, he is by far the strongest 12-year-old in the world. The world’s youngest International Master, he is pursuing breaking Abhimanyu Mishra’s youngest Grandmaster record, but has just a couple more months to succeed.

It is worth noting that two more players have just qualified for the Grand Swiss from the World Cup currently running in Azerbaijan. Hungarian GM Ferenc Berkes in the World Cup and IM Medina Warda Aulia from Indonesia in the Women’s World Cup got the tickets to FIDE Grand Swiss reserved for players who reach the Round of 16 in Baku.