Youngest Yet Female IM

Story at Caspio Net

July 13, 2011
11-year old Kazakh chess player becomes international master

A three-time world chess champion, Zhansaya Abdumalik, has become an international master. The ambitious girl won a world championship, which was held in Poland, for the third time. She recently won an international tournament in Indonesia among girls under 20 years of age as well, which allowed her to obtain the title of International Master and increase her ranking.

Zhansaya Abdumalik, Three-Times World Chess Champion
«I’m closer to the international grandmaster title now, which is my goal. My opponents are intimidated by me. Children often look at the ranking and your title. Some girls have a stomach ache or a headache. So they give up and just leave.»

The Kazakh chess princess can get into the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest grandmaster, beating the result of a girl from Egypt, who became an international master at the age of 11 years and 7 months. Zhansaya has a 2-month lead over her. The Kazakh-British Technical University awarded the 11-year old champion an educational grant thanks to which Zhansaya will be able to study at KBTU after school. The university will also sponsor the chess player’s trips to tournaments. Zhansaya dreams of becoming a grandmaster at the age of 12. The girl will soon return to the Singapore Chess Academy, where she received an annual educational grant, and in November she will take part in the World Youth Chess Championship in Brazil.

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About those championship titles:

As far as I gathered from her FIDE record, she won:

Under 11 Girls title in the 2010 (6th) World School Chess Championships (July, 2010), by coming in first place with 4.0/4 in a field of 12 players -- not sure how that played out since she only faced 4 opponents.  Anyway, you can find the information here. 

I can't find any record that she won two other world champion titles.  Also, I was always under the impression that to be an IM, one had to have an ELO (rating) of at least 2400?  Zhansaya's current ELO is 2030.  So - remains to be see if the facts listed in this article can be substantiated.  But congratulations to the young lady!  She has a plan, she has talent, she's not afraid of mixing it up with the boys OTB -- if she can get training and backing, who knows?