12-year-old Faustino Oro secures final requirement, becomes chess Grandmaster

Argentine chess prodigy Faustino Oro secured on Saturday the final requirement he needed to become a Grandmaster. The 12-year-old had an excellent performance at the recent 2026 Sardinia World Chess Festival, securing the final of three norms players require to earn the title with a match to spare. In chess, players seeking to become Grandmasters need to secure a FIDE ELO rating of at least 2500 — a requirement Oro cleared in October 2025 —, but also three norms.  Norms are results within competitions with a specific set of standards: it must be a nine-game tournament, at least three GMs must compete, all attending players must have a 2380 ELO rating, and at least two players must be from foreign federations.  To secure a norm, a player needs to achieve a 2600 ELO rating in that tournament. There are many ways to get that score, as it depends on the strength of the rivals a player faces. Faustino Oro’s wins At Cerdeña, Oro defeated Germany’s Gerhard Lorscheid, France’s Alexis Tahay, Italy’s Guido Caprio, and Poland’s Bartlomiej Niedbala, in addition to drawing with India’s Adharsh Murali Karthikeyan, Aditya Mittal, and Leon Mendonca. Despite a loss in the final round against Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi, Oro had already secured a solid enough performance to claim the title. At just 12 years, 6 months, and 26-days-old, he became the second-youngest Grandmaster in history.  Oro was in the running for the youngest ever Grandmaster, but missed out on the final round of the Aeroflot International Open in Moscow, falling to Russia’s Aleksey Grebnev. The defeat meant he was unable to secure the third norm and break the all-time record for the Grandmaster title, set by the U.S. player Abhimanyu Mishra at 12 years, 4 months, and 25 days.