Another chess prodigy (Part 6): Parimarjan Negi

Parimarjan Negi, one of the well-known prodigies, at the age of 13 years, 4 months, and 22 days became the youngest Indian to earn the Grandmaster title. He broke the previous record of Pentala Harikrishna (GM at 15), who broke Viswanathan Anand's (GM at 18). And he is also the second youngest Grandmaster ever (second only to Sergey Karjakin, who achieved this feat at the age of 12 years and 7 months, however, holds the World's Youngest GM title), beat Magnus Carlsen record by becoming the second-youngest person in history to complete all the requirements for the grandmaster title by a five-day margin. In a mere six months span, he made three GM norms. The first one in Hastings, January 2006; the second just a couple of weeks later in the same month at the Parsvnath International Open in his hometown, Delhi; and the final norm in July the same year at the Chelyabinsk Region Superfinal Championship at Satka in Russia. And as per January 2010, he is at his rating peak, 2621.

Personal life
Born on 9 February 1993, in Uttaranchal. At a very early age, the family shifted its base to Delhi. His father is an Air Traffic Controller while his mom is an executive in Life Insurance Corporation of India. Parimarjan Negi started learning chess before he was 5 years of age when his father's friend taught him the basics of chess. Parimarjan is a student at the Amity International School (Saket) in Delhi. He is one of the toppers in his class and in spite of his long absences, he passes his exams with excellent results and is able to strike a balance between chess and studies.

Achievements
In 2002, Negi registered his maiden international success, when he won the Asian championship at Tehran and Commonwealth Championship 2003, both in the under-10 category. He awarded as "Best Sub Junior Award" in 37th Biel International Chess Festival 2004. In July 2005, he scored his third and final IM norm at the international Open in Sort, Spain, which made him the world's youngest International Master in chess. While in 2006, he made his biggest achievement by becoming a second-youngest Grandmaster in the world. Joint champion in the ‘World Youth Stars’ tournament held at Kirishi, Russia and ranked fourth in Corus Grandmaster group ‘C’ tournament in Netherlands in 2007. In January 2008 he got second position in Corus Chess Tournament “Grandmaster Group C”. In the same year, Negi marked his improvement with joint first place at the Kaupthing Open in Luxembourg and clear first at the Philadelphia Open. He was runner-up behind Abhijeet Gupta in the World Junior Championship 2008 in Turkey with 9.5/13. In year 2009, he won the Malaysian Open Chess Championship Malaysia and Politiken Cup in Copenhegan, Denmark. He was qualified for the 2009 World Cup in Khanty Mansisyk, Russia from “Asian Continental Chess Championship 2009” but knocked out at round 1 by Swiss Vadim Milov 1½-3½. In the recent Asian Team Chess Championship which held in Kolkata, India, December 2009, he got the best 4th board prize while his team won the tournament. And now Parimarjan is struggling in Corus Group B and is at 6th placed with 5,5/10 from 13 games will be played.