Major Prodigy Watch Update:
I have greatly expanded my spreadsheet. I am now tracking 40 different players, including all 23 people who have achieved the GM title prior to their 15th birthday (
per Wikipedia). Furthermore, I have added a new output. I can now, for any age between 10 and 19 (to the nearest month) tell you exactly where each player ranks within the dataset. For instance: at the age of 13.5, Magnus Carlsen's highest rating to that point was 2552 (actually reached at 13.33). This is the SECOND best rating ever achieved at or before the age of 13.5. I'm not sure if I'm tracking everyone I should be, there may be players (particularly in the 10-12 age range) who spiked ridiculously high, but didn't reach GM level, who I should add to round out the record holders.
There are currently a few holes in the data. I have six youngsters who I just added to the list that I don't have a birthday for. Additionally, all my data comes off the FIDE website, which only goes back to 2000, so several players born before 1990 are missing data from early in their lives. If anyone can point me in the direction of FIDE rating lists from the 1990s, that would be wonderful! Also, if anyone wants to Google-stalk a few pre-teens, and find me birthdays of Javokhir Sindarov, R Praggnanandhaa, Boris Bogatyrev, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Alireza Firouzja, or Parviz Gasimov, I would appreciate it!
Before I unveil the data in all its glory, though, I want to see if I can stump you all.
For ALL ages between 10.0 and 19.0, the status of "highest rating ever achieved at or before that age" is held by one of only four players within my data set. NAME ALL FOUR!
Contenders, listed in alphabetical order, by first name, aka everyone in my dataset:
Abdumalik Zhansaya
Akshat Chandra
Alireza Firouzja
Andrey Esipenko
Anish Giri
Anton Smirnov
Aravindh Chithambaram
Awonder Liang
Boris Bogatyrev
Bu Xiangzhi
Daniil Dubov
Dariusz Swiercz
Etienne Bacrot
Fabiano Caruana
Hikaru Nakamura
Hou Yifan
Illya Nyzhnyk
Javokhir Sindarov
Jeffrey Xiong
Jorge Cori
Magnus Carlsen
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son
Nihal Sarin
Nodirbek Abdusattorov
Parimarjan Negi
Parviz Gasimov
Peter Leko
R Praggnanandhaa
Ray Robson
Richard Rapport
Ruslan Ponomariov
Samuel Sevian
Sergey Karjakin
Teimour Radjabov
Vladislav Artemiev
Wang Hao
Wei Yi
Wesley So
Yuriy Kuzubov