Luca Protopopescu Becomes Youngest Ever to Break 2200 Rating Barrier At 9

Just days after celebrating his ninth birthday, CM Luca Protopopescu from France has made chess history. The prodigy from Marseille has become the youngest player ever to cross the 2200 FIDE classical rating mark, an achievement made by beating his former coach.

It's been nine months since FM Ethan Pang from England broke Argentina's IM Faustino Oro's record by seven days to become the youngest player to achieve a classical rating of more than 2200. This month, a nine-year-old from Marseille broke it for the third time in less than a year.

Protopopescu, who turned nine a few days before the April list was released, now tops the list ahead of Pang and Oro. He achieved the milestone at nine years and five days, 98 days earlier than Pang and 105 days earlier than Oro.

Reaching a rating of 2200, considered "master level" in chess, is a major achievement for any player. For a nine-year-old, it's nearly unheard of. To put Luca's accomplishment into perspective: he is now ranked number one out of 2,443 rated players under the age of 10 worldwide, number 328 among 15,704 active players in France, and an astonishing number 7,185 among 197,300 players globally, according to FIDE.

His recent jump can be credited to two fantastic performances at tournaments at home in France, where he picked up a staggering 321 rating points to climb from 1895 to 2216 in just two months.

Last month, he sensationally scored 7.5/9 to win the B group of the Cannes International with a 2276 rating performance. It's worth noting that Luca was only seeded 54th among 181 players, and surely among the youngest as well.

Before picking up 161 rating points in Cannes, Luca also won another tournament in the French town of Hyeres on the Mediterranean coast with 5.5/6 points and a performance rating of 2336.

The highlight was a win over his former coach, 25-year-old IM Guillaume Philippe (2332), and another victory over FM Llewellyn Vidal (2188). Unfortunately, no games from these events have yet emerged.

While Protopopescu is just now making waves internationally, he has already made headlines at home in France. In an interview with local newspaper Le Provence, his mother Andreea said her son learned the rules during the pandemic at the age of four. 

"He watched his father play, but didn't necessarily ask to play. Then he started to play and very quickly he beat me. Eventually we looked for a club to see how strong he was," she said.

Luca follows in the footsteps of a generation of talented children who took up the game during the lockdown and eventually scored extraordinary results. In addition to Oro and Pang, Chess.com covered the stories of WFM Bodhana Sivanandan (England), CM Ashwath Kaushik (Singapore), and FM Roman Shogdzhiev (Russia), who all learned the rules during the pandemic and went on to smash records.

In 2023, Protopopescu became the Under-8 champion and then won the silver medal with 7.5/9 in the European Youth Championship Under-8 section, just missing out on the gold medal due to a worse tiebreak.

Since September, he has been coached by GM Mert Erdogdu, who worked extensively with Turkish prodigy GM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, the youngest ever to achieve a 2600 rating. This year, Protopopescu secured a sponsorship deal with Evren Ucok, the Monaco-based Turkish investor who also supports Erdogmus and GM Ediz Gurel.

"He is really good," Erdogdu tells Chess.com about his young student. "He is extremely well concentrated and is always calculating. He has the blood of a champion."

When asked whether Luca truly plays at a 2200 level, Erdogdu is unequivocal. "Absolutely. His blitz rating also supports that—2500 on Chess.com is not a joke."

On the list of the highest-ranked players under 10, Protopopescu is 172 points ahead of Timofei Demchenko and 195 points ahead of Marc Barelo Melnyk, both from Spain. 

Next week, Luca will compete in the World Youth Rapid & Blitz Championships in Rhodes, Greece, where he will enter as one of the favorites. But for now, his main focus is on enjoying the game.

"I prefer playing more than winning," the prodigy told Le Provence.