Rapport was born in Szombathely, Hungary and learned chess at age four from his father. One of Europe's bright young talents, Richárd Rapport acquired his FM title in 2008, his IM title in 2009 and his GM title in February 2010, when he became the world's youngest grandmaster at the age of 13 years 11 months. He remained the youngest GM until Illya Nyzhnyk gained his GM title in December 2010.
Rapport has been an active player since he started playing FIDE-rated events in 2006 when he was ten; in that year he won the U10 division of the 4th EU Youth Championship. In 2007, he took out the U12 Hungarian Boys Championship with 8.5/9, and was =4th in the Pannonia Cup Open A. In 2008, Rapport won First Saturday July IM Tournament, and came =5th in the Tenkes Kupa Open Championship. In 2009, he came second in the Genset Cup and in the First Saturday GM Tournament in August. In 2010, he came =2nd in the Marienbad Open 2010 - A - GM tournament and won the First Saturday GM February, defeating all four grandmasters who competed, thereby completing his third and final GM norm.
Since gaining his GM title, Rapport has finished equal second with Lajos Portisch behind Alexander Beliavsky in the Gotth' Art Cup GM Tournament in May 2010, scored 8.5/11 in the Hungarian Team Championship Final Szabo L, and scored 7/11 in the powerful Serbian League (2010), scoring +5 -3 =2 against the 10 grandmasters he encountered during the contest (the 11th player was an FM whom he also defeated). In October 2010, he scored 7.5/11 to come in 7th in the World Youth U14 championships, losing 22 ELO points in the process. However, he made up some ground in November when he scored 7.5/8 in the Hungarian Youth Team Championships, clawing back 10 ELO points. In 2011, he lost a match with Csaba Balogh 3.5-8 (+2 -3 =3), nonetheless gained Elo points for this result, and scored 5.5/10 at Gibraltar Masters (2011) and 7/11 at the European Championship (2011), gaining Elo points in each event. In May 2011, he scored 5.5/9 at the 41st International Tournament Bosna and in July, scored 7.5/10 at the Politiken Cup, a point off the lead. In November 2011, Rapport played a match with Austrian number 1 player Markus Ragger, losing by 3.5-4.5 (+1 -2 =5), nevertheless gaining 9 Elo as a result. Rapport finished 2011 with a solid 6/9 at Groningen and started 2012 with an equally solid 6/10 at Gibraltar Masters (2012), adding 16 points to his rating for the first bimonthly rating period of 2012. In early 2012, Rapport held his own in the 2011-12 Bundesliga and in the European Championship (2012) (5/10), but scored a strong 7/9 to place =2nd in the 2012 International Neckar Open. Subsequent strong results in the Hungarian Team Championship 2011-12 and in the Mitropa Cup 2012 have pushed his rating to over 2600 a few months after his 16th birthday. Later that year he was runner-up on tiebreak behind Turkish GM Alexander Ipatov in the World Junior Championship (2012).
2013 started auspiciously for Rapport. Competing at Tata Steel Group B (2013), he finished =1st on 9/13 with Arkadij Naiditsch, but won the event on tiebreak. It also added a massive 25 points to his rating almost bringing him into the top 100. The completion of the Austrian League has lifted Rapport into the top 100 for the first time. His excellent results in the Bundesliga and his =1st at the 2013 Neckar International Open added 20 points to his card to push him well up into the top 100. In May 2013, he won the Sigeman & Co (2013), a category 15 event in Sweden, with 4.5/7 and in June 2013, was a member of the victorious Clichy team in the French TOP 12 competition. He suffered a significant setback at the 6-player DRR category 19 Biel (2013) where he placed a long last with a -4 result, shedding 17 rating points. However, he subsequently made up some ground playing board 2 for Clichy Échecs 92, which placed 6th in the European Club Cup (2013), and in rounds 3 and 4 of the Bundesliga (2013/14). He closed out 2013 with =1st at the European Rapid Chess Championship and =4th at the European Blitz Chess Championship, both of which were held in Warsaw in December.
Rapport received an invitation to play at the category 20 Tata Steel Masters (2014), however his inaugural participation in his first super tournament was inauspicious with his unorthodox and aggressive style costing more points than he gained. His final result was 3.5/11, although he scored wins over Boris Gelfand and Pentala Harikrishna. His first Olympiad participation was in August 2014 when he played board 4 for Hungary at the Tromso Olympiad (2014), helping his team to win silver. Later that month, he came =1st (2nd on tiebreak) alongside Hrant Melkumyan at the Riga Technical University Open (2014). He competed in the Serbian League in 2014, playing board 1 for SK "Radnicki Vodovod" - Kragujevac, winning both team and individual gold. (1)
Playing top board for Hockenheim, his win against München's Andreas Schenk in round 14 of the Bundesliga 2013-14 brought Rapport into the "2700 club" for the first time. His highest rating to date was 2720 in October 2014 when he was ranked #28 in the world, his highest ranking to date. He was the world's top junior (i.e, under 20) from January 2015 until April 2015.
In early 2015, he scored a relatively rating neutral 7/10 at Gibraltar Masters (2015) but suffered a catastrophic loss of form in March and April during Aeroflot Open (2015) and the World Team Championship (2015), losing 39 rating points to fall well below 2700.
live ratings: http://www.2700chess.com/; Wikipedia article: Richárd Rapport
(1) http://chess-results.com/tnr143833....
Kibitzing
