My ultimate goal is to become world champion, says Youngest Grandmaster Abhimanyu Mishra

Abhimanyu Mishra, who recently became the youngest chess grandmaster in history, said that his ultimate goal is to be the World Champion.

The 12-year-old player from New Jersey on Wednesday scored his third GM norm in Budapest, having already crossed the required 2500 Elo rating barrier.

Abhimanyu knows the road ahead is long so he right now concentrating on becoming the super grandmaster in the coming three years.

"My ultimate goal is to become a world champion but my next intermediate goal is to become a super grandmaster and I am hoping to that before the age of 15," he told ANI.

Abhimanyu won the biggest game of his short but sweet career so far. He defeated the 15-year-old Indian GM Leon Luke Mendonca with the black pieces, securing a performance rating higher than 2600 over nine rounds.

The youngest chess grandmaster described it as an "amazing" feeling and admitted it was a tight game for him.

"When I was playing the game, I was not thinking about this but of course it is an amazing feeling. The final game against Leon Luke Mendonca was a very tight game, somehow I was able to win that," he said.

"Felt that a huge pressure finally got lifted off. Because we were here for the last two months and I was missing the game by one point or half a point. So it felt great to finally finished the things off," he added.

Abhimanyu, who started playing chess when he was two and a half, idolises World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen.

"What I like about chess is that you can crush your opponent without doing any harm to them. My role model is Magnus Carlsen........ the way he has been dominating after becoming World Champion is amazing," said Abhimanyu.

"My parents have been supporting me tremendously, without them I cannot imagine coming up this far. With hard work you can reach anywhere you want," he added.

Talking about the five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, Abhimanyu said, "Yes, I saw his tweet about congratulating me. It is a different feeling when a person of his caliber congratulates you. I wish to meet him soon."

"It would be a wonderful opportunity to play against him because the strength of top players is beyond everything. It will also give me huge learning chance," he added.

Abhimanyu broke GM Sergey Karjakin's record that was standing for 19 years. On August 12, 2002, Karjakin, a world championship challenger in 2016, secured the grandmaster title at the age of 12 years and seven months.

Born on February 5, 2009, Abhimanyu took 12.4 years and 25 days to obtain the highest title in chess.

"This year I did not go to school as last year I finished two grades in one year. We knew that it would be a difficult goal especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic," said Abhimanyu.

"In last 1.5 years, I used to practice chess for at least 12 hours every day. And as we witnessed COVID-induced lockdown and restrictions, I worked very hard to improve my skills instead of wasting time," he signed off.

( With inputs from ANI )