David Howell

In the FIDE rating list of August 2015 he reached a rating of 2712 and thus joined the ranks of the 2700+ players for the first time.

A significant rise in his Elo rating followed his achievements of 2008, beginning with victory at the Andorra Open, where he scored 8/9 points, ahead of experienced grandmasters Julio Granda Zuñiga and Mihail Marin. He followed this with a share of third place at the World Junior Chess Championship in Gaziantep, where he was always challenging for the lead. At the very strong EU Individual Open Chess Championship in Liverpool he finished with a share of fifth place despite a loss on time and then went on to win the annual Winterthur Masters event, ahead of other grandmasters, among them former Paraguayan champion Axel Bachmann and former Swiss champions Joseph Gallagher and Florian Jenni. At the Chess Olympiad of 2008, held in Dresden, he joined the England team on board 3 and contributed 7½/11 for a tournament performance rating (TPR) of 2675.

Howell was the British Rapidplay Chess Champion in 2008 with a score of 10/11 points, and in 2009 with 9/11. He tied for first with Andrei Istrățescu, Romain Edouard and Mark Hebden in the 2009/10 Hastings International Chess Congress. In August 2009, Howell won the British championship for the first time scoring 9/11. He placed third in the London Chess Classic in December. He won the British Rapidplay Chess Championship again in 2010 with a score of 10½/11. In 2012 Howell won the Leiden Chess Tournament. In August 2013 Howell won his second British championship title with 9½/11 points. The following year he shared first place with Jonathan Hawkins in the 101st British Chess Championship. Howell took clear second place at the 2015 Gibraltar Masters tournament with a score of 8/10, half point behind Hikaru Nakamura. In December 2015, Howell won the inaugural British Knockout Championship, held alongside the 7th London Chess Classic, by defeating in the final Nicholas Pert 4–2.

Since becoming a grandmaster in 2007, Howell has participated in a variety of competitions; he took a share of fourth place in the British championship that year and went on to scoop the English Chess Federation's Player of the Year Award.

Progress was perhaps more measured during his early to mid teens, but Howell continued to meet all the milestone challenges, first gaining the International Master title, and culminating in becoming a grandmaster at the age of sixteen, the youngest ever in the UK. Along the way, he performed well at the Hastings knockout-style tournament (2004–5 edition), where he was eliminated at the quarter-final (round 5) stage by the strong Polish GM Bartosz Soćko.

He obtained the three norms required for the title Grandmaster (GM) between 2004 and 2007; these comprised the 4NCL team tournament (season 2004/5), the CCA-ICC International at New York City 2005 and Stockholm's Rilton Cup 2006/7. His results included wins against GMs Tomi Nybäck, Slavko Cicak, Vladimir Epishin, Daniel Fridman and Nick de Firmian.

In March 2002, Howell drew the last of four games with the Einstein Group World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik, becoming the youngest player in the world to score against a reigning world chess champion in an organised chess match. The resulting publicity led to articles in all the main British national newspapers and appearances on CBBC, Channel 4 News, and Richard & Judy.

In 2001, Howell came joint first at the European Youth Chess Championships in the Under 12 category and joint second at the World Youth Chess Championships in the same category. In the Hastings Challengers tournament in January 2001, Howell became the youngest ever British player to defeat a grandmaster at classical time controls when he beat Colin McNab.

In August 1999, Howell became famous internationally when he broke the world record for the youngest player to have defeated a Grandmaster in an official game. Aged 8, he defeated John Nunn in a blitz game at the Mind Sports Olympiad. Howell still holds this record. He is also the youngest player in the world to have qualified to compete in a national chess championship, taking part in the British Chess Championship in August 2000. He came fourth in the Player of the Year ballot held by the British Chess Federation during 2000.

David Wei Liang Howell (born 14 November 1990) is an English chess player. A three-time British champion (2009, 2013 and 2014), he is the youngest in the United Kingdom to hold the title Grandmaster, earned when he came second during the 35th Rilton Cup in Stockholm on 5 January 2007 at the age of 16. The previous record holder, Luke McShane, was six months older when he became a grandmaster.