GMMustafa Yilmaz

Mustafa Yılmaz was born in Ankara in 1992 and began playing chess at seven, encouraged by his older sister Ezgi. He joined the Turkish national team in 2008 and became the country's youngest national champion in 2009. He became an IM in 2009 and a GM in 2012. With support from the Turkish federation, he studied in the chess department of the Russian State Social University in Moscow. He won further Turkish championships in 2017 and 2022. In 2023 he finished runner-up in the Tata Steel Challengers with nine points from thirteen games. He reached the third round of that year's World Cup, losing to Fabiano Caruana in rapid tiebreaks.