Wei Yi

Biography

Wei Yi is a Chinese grandmaster born on 2 June 1999 in Yancheng, Jiangsu. A prodigy from an early age, he collected his three grandmaster norms inside a single year — at the 2012 World Junior Championship in Athens, the 2012 Indonesian Open, and the 2013 Reykjavik Open — and was awarded the GM title in 2013 at 13 years, 8 months and 23 days old, the 11th-youngest player in history to reach the title. Two years later, on the March 2015 FIDE rating list, he became the youngest player ever to cross a rating of 2700, at age 15.

Wei Yi is best known to the wider chess public for his win over Lazaro Bruzon Batista at the 8th Danzhou Super-GM tournament in July 2015, where he finished clear first with 6½/9, a full point ahead of a field that included Ding Liren, Vassily Ivanchuk and Yu Yangyi. The Bruzon game, opened by the sacrifice 22.Rxf7!!, has been called the "Game of the Decade," its king hunt compared to the celebrated 1912 miniature between Edward Lasker and Sir George Thomas. That same year Wei Yi became China's youngest-ever national champion, a title he defended in 2016 and 2017, and in April 2015 he anchored board four for the Chinese team that won gold at the World Team Chess Championship, scoring 7/9.

He has since represented China at four Chess Olympiads — Tromsø 2014, Baku 2016, Batumi 2018 and Budapest 2024 — winning team gold in 2014 and 2018. His individual career peaked at the 2024 Tata Steel Masters, where he tied for first and then won play-off games against Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Gukesh Dommaraju to take the title, lifting his rating to a career-best 2763 that October. He remains among the world's elite, finishing runner-up at the 2025 FIDE World Cup and placing fourth at the 2026 Candidates Tournament with 7/14.

Key achievements

• Grandmaster at 13 years, 8 months and 23 days old (2013) — 11th-youngest ever
• Youngest player in history to reach a 2700 FIDE rating (March 2015, age 15)
• Winner, 2024 Tata Steel Masters (play-off wins over Abdusattorov and Gukesh)
• Career-peak FIDE rating of 2763, October 2024
• Three-time Chinese National Champion (2015, 2016, 2017) — youngest ever winner in 2015
• Celebrated 2015 brilliancy over Bruzon Batista at Danzhou, hailed as the "Game of the Decade"
• Chess Olympiad gold with China, Tromsø 2014 and Batumi 2018

Ratings

Titles

Classical Tournaments

Team Events

Source: OlimpBase (olimpbase.org) Chinese team rosters, cross-checked with Wikipedia.

Read more on Wikipedia or view his FIDE profile.