Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux (born 2004) is a Canadian chess grandmaster who won the 2022 World Under 18 Chess Championship. He completed all requirements for a Grandmaster title in 2023 at the age of 19, and was officially awarded the GM title in January 2024. He is the youngest grandmaster in Quebec's history.

Chess career

Son of Isabelle Rodrigue, Shawn learned to play chess at age 6 at an after school program and quickly fell in love with the game. In his first event, at 6, he won five straight games, and at 12, he had a FIDE rating of over 2000. He became an International Master at 18 and a Grandmaster at 19. He achieved a perfect 9/9 score at the 2022 Charlotte Chess Center IM C Norm Invitational with a performance rating of 3037. This result garnered attention on social media, including a video on the popular

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel Gotham Chess. By becoming the World Youth Chess Champion in the under 18 section, he earned his first grandmaster norm, became only the second Canadian to win a World Youth Chess Championship and the first Canadian over 14 to win the Youth Chess Championship. In November 2023, he earned his final GM norm at the

FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2023 The FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2023 was a chess tournament that formed part of the qualification cycle for the World Chess Championship 2024. It was an 11-round Swiss-system tournament with 114 players competing from 25 October to 5 November 20 ...

, where he defeated a number of higher-rated grandmasters including

Benjamin Gledura Benjamin ( ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the younger of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel, and Jacob's twe ...

Max Warmerdam Max Warmerdam (born 30 March 2000) is a Dutch chess grandmaster. Chess career Warmerdam earned his FIDE master title in 2015, followed by the international master title in 2018. After qualifying through the "top nine-round event" at the 2019 ...

, and

Vasyl Ivanchuk Vasyl Mykhailovych Ivanchuk (; born March 18, 1969) is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster. He was awarded the title of International Grandmaster, Grandmaster by FIDE in 1988. A leading chess player since 1988, Ivanchuk has been ranked at No. 2 on t ...

Playing style

In 2022, Rodrigue-Lemieux played 2 exhibition games against

Hikaru Nakamura Christopher Hikaru NakamuraAnderssen's Opening Anderssen's Opening is a chess opening defined by the opening move: :1. a3 Anderssen's Opening is named after unofficial World Chess Champion Adolf Anderssen, who played it three times in his 1858 match against Paul Morphy. Although Anderssen was ...

. He has stated that his use of uncommon openings throws opponents off, and might be useful in getting well prepared players out of book early on. His favourite player is

Magnus Carlsen Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster. Carlsen is a five-time World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion, five-time World Rapid Chess Championship, World Rapid Chess Champio ...

whom he hopes to beat in the future.

Personal life

Rodrigue-Lemieux is a

French-Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French colonists first arriving in France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of French Canadians live in the prov ...

residing in Montreal. He first discovered his interest in chess in Grade 1 where he saw his classmates playing and signed up for chess classes. He is currently enrolled in

Collège de Maisonneuve Collège de Maisonneuve (; or Cégep de Maisonneuve) is a francophone public pre-university and technical college located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Partnerships The College is affiliated with the ACCC, and CCAA. History In 1967, several ...

In April 2023, he was offered a four-year scholarship to the

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) is a public research university with its main campus in Edinburg, Texas, and multiple other campuses throughout the Rio Grande Valley region of Texas. It is the southernmost member of the Uni ...

, renowned for its recruitment of talented chess players, which he intends on accepting.

References

Living people Chess Grandmasters 2004 births Canadian chess players Collège de Maisonneuve alumni Chess players from Montreal World Youth Chess Champions {{Canada-chess-bio-stub