The pulse of professional chess, since the first Elo list
Photo: Danuta Matloch / Ministerstwo Kultury, Dziedzictwa Narodowego i Sportu, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 PL
Jan-Krzysztof Duda was born on 26 April 1998 in Kraków, Poland. He earned the grandmaster title in October 2013 at 15 years and 21 days old, at the time the second-youngest Polish player ever to do so, after Dariusz Świercz. His rise continued through the junior ranks: in September 2015 he tied for first with Mikhail Antipov at the World Junior Chess Championship in Khanty-Mansiysk, taking silver on tiebreak, and on 1 July 2017 he became the first Polish junior to cross a 2700 FIDE rating, reaching 2707.
Duda's signature achievement came at the 2021 FIDE World Cup in Sochi, Russia (12 July–6 August 2021), a 206-player knockout. After beating Alexander Grischuk in a round-five rapid tiebreak and Vidit Gujrathi in the quarterfinal, he eliminated reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen in the semifinal tiebreak before defeating former World Cup winner Sergey Karjakin 1.5–0.5 in the final to take the title — a result that also qualified him for the 2022 Candidates Tournament. Earlier that year he had already beaten Carlsen twice: in the Lindores Abbey Rapid Chess Challenge in May 2020, and in classical chess at Altibox Norway Chess on 10 October 2020, a win that ended Carlsen's 125-game unbeaten streak in classical chess.
Duda reached his peak FIDE rating of 2760 in December 2021, the highest ever recorded by a Polish player, the same month he also won the European Blitz Chess Championship in Katowice. At the 2022 Candidates Tournament in Madrid he finished seventh with 5.5/14. He remains Poland's top-ranked player and a regular for the national team at the Chess Olympiad and European Team Championship.
| Date | Milestone | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2013 | Awarded the grandmaster title (age 15) | — |
| Jul 2017 | First Polish junior to break 2700 | 2707 |
| Dec 2021 | All-time peak rating — highest ever by a Pole | 2760 |
| Sep 2026 | Current rating — #13 in the world | 2743 |
| Title | Years | Count |
|---|---|---|
| GM | Grandmaster, awarded Oct 2013 (age 15) | — |
| World Cup | 2021, Sochi — beat Karjakin 1.5–0.5 in the final | 1× |
| Polish Ch. | 2018 — 6½/9 (+4–0=5) | 1× |
| Euro Blitz | 2021, Katowice | 1× |
| Euro Rapid | 2014, Wrocław | 1× |
| Year | Tournament | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | First Saturday GM Tournament, Budapest | 1st |
| 2015 | Lake Sevan round-robin, Martuni | 1st |
| 2018 | Polish Chess Championship | 1st |
| 2018 | Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting | 4th (4/7) |
| 2020 | Altibox Norway Chess — beat Carlsen, ending his 125-game unbeaten run | — |
| 2021 | FIDE World Cup, Sochi | 1st |
| 2022 | Candidates Tournament, Madrid | 7th (5.5/14) |
Source: Wikipedia career section. Only individually verified classical (standard time control) results are listed; several rapid/blitz-only wins are omitted here.
| Year | Event | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Chess Olympiad, Tromsø (board 3) | 8½/11 |
| 2018 | Chess Olympiad, Batumi — 4th with Poland | — |
| 2021 | European Team Championship — bronze with Poland | — |
Source: Wikipedia; individual Olympiad board score cross-checked where available via olimpbase.org.
Read more on Wikipedia or view his FIDE profile.