Roman Shogdzhiev
Roman Savrovich Shogdzhiev is a Russian chess player. A chess prodigy, he became the youngest international master in history in May 2025, at the age of 10 years, 3 months, and 21 days.
Chess career
2022–2023
In November 2022, Shogdzhiev won the U8 section of the European Youth Chess Championship in Antalya, Turkey. He was tied with Marc Llari and Ali Poyraz Uzdemir, but won owing to a higher Buchholz score.In October 2023, he won the U8 section of the World Cadets Chess Championship, dominating the section by winning all eleven games.
At the World Rapid Chess Championship 2023|Rapid] and Blitz Chess Championship 2023|Blitz] Chess Championships in December 2023, at the age of eight, he defeated five grandmasters: Jakhongir Vakhidov and Johan-Sebastian Christiansen in the Rapid section, and Kirill Shevchenko, Alan Pichot, and Pranav V in the Blitz section.
International Master
At the RadnickiChess IM tournament in Belgrade in December 2024, at the age of 9 years, 10 months, and 7 days, he became the youngest player in history to score an IM norm, after drawing in eleven moves against the grandmaster Branko Damljanović in the final round. This made him the world's highest-rated player under the age of eleven and one of only three players to have reached a FIDE rating of 2300 prior to turning ten years old.He scored his second IM norm in May 2025, after defeating IM Senthil Maran K in the eighth round of the Baku Open. Later that month, at the RadnickiChess May IM tournament in Belgrade, he scored his third and final IM norm and became the youngest international master in history, at the age of 10 years, 3 months, and 21 days. In doing so, he broke Faustino Oro's record of 10 years, 8 months, and 16 days.
In 2025, it was reported that the Russian Chess Federation had provided Shogdzhiev with a team of seven grandmaster coaches, led by Evgeny Tomashevsky. Leonard Barden has drawn comparisons between Shogdzhiev and Garry Kasparov.