ChessKid Ambassador Faustino Oro is World's Youngest International Master!

Argentinian ChessKid Ambassador Faustino Oro has risen the ranks and achieved the International Master title! Fausti scored his final IM norm at the Barcelona IM 2024 in Barcelona, Spain. This makes him the youngest to ever become an International Master!

After learning chess at the age of six, Fausti immediately found a love for the game and within only a year already achieved a FIDE rating of 2000. At that time, he also began streaming in Spanish with WIM Ivette Garcia on ChessKid.

WIM Ivette Garcia and Fausti streaming on ChessKid Español

WIM Ivette Garcia Says…

“Since I met Fausti Oro in 2021 and playing his first games, I knew I was facing a chess genius. What stood out the most is his love for chess.”

Fausti continued to play in tournaments, being not only the youngest player to achieve a 2200 FIDE rating, but also the youngest to hit 2300 and the youngest to score an IM norm. Fausti was also the youngest to surpass a 3000 blitz rating on Chess.com and defeated Magnus Carlsen in a bullet game! From then on, he has been dubbed "The Messi of Chess", a reference to Lionel Messi, one of the best and most influential football players in Argentina's history.

FunMasterMike Says…

“I first came across Fausti when he started streaming on his own channel during the pandemic. The only thing worse than my chess skills are my Spanish skills, but even though I didn't understand what he was saying, his energy was infectious! I became a fan right away. Of course, he went on to become a very strong player too; perhaps a generational talent. My only hope is that he doesn't learn English. Otherwise, I'm out of a job for sure.”

After earning his first IM norm, Fausti was able to quickly achieve his second norm at a recent norm event in Colombia, and then, in less than a month, now finds himself with his final norm in a stunning run of tournament performances!

Fausti started the Barcelona IM tournament off strong with a perfect score of 3/3, and a brilliant round 1 victory against GM Hipolito Gargatagli.

Fausti contemplating his next move at the Barcelona IM tournament

(Photo courtesy of the Fausti family)

He continued his impressive run into the later rounds of the tournament, having a near-perfect (96.6%) accuracy against FM Alex Tornero!

Fausti was able to dominate the event with a final score of 6.5/9, enough to earn the final IM norm he needed. The ChessKid team sends their congratulations on this amazing accomplishment!

We can't wait to see what's next for Faustino Oro - could grandmaster be in the cards soon? Learn more about IM Faustino Oro, review some of his best games, and learn some fun facts about the young prodigy by reading his bio!