page_title: Matthias Blübaum
section_title: Prinzengruppe
hierarchical_section_title: Matthias Blübaum / Chess career / Prinzengruppe
caption_attribution_description: English: Matthias Blübaum, chess player from Germany
context_page_description: Matthias Blübaum is a German chess grandmaster. He is the No. 2 ranked German player as of June 2020.
  Blübaum began playing chess at the age of six and emerged as part of the Prinzengruppe at age twelve. He earned his international master title in 2012 and was awarded the grandmaster title in 2015. A member of the German team that won the 2015 European Youth Team Chess Championship, he has since represented his nation at the European Team Chess Championship and Chess Olympiad.
context_section_description: Blübaum learned to play chess when he was six years old, and began a systematic training schedule at the age of eight.
  He received wide attention at the age of 12 as part of the Prinzengruppe, a group of four young, talented German players ("princes") who were projected to become grandmasters ("kings") by German national junior coach Bernd Vökler. The group, consisting of Blübaum, Rasmus Svane, Dennis Wagner, and Alexander Donchenko, completed the objective set for them in 2016, when Svane earned his final grandmaster (GM) norm and thus became the fourth and final member of the group to achieve the title of GM.
  The German Chess Federation named Blübaum the U14 Player of the Year of 2011. Notable achievements in the year were his attainment of the FIDE master title and his third-place finish at the German U18 Chess Championship. Also in 2011, he placed sixth at the World U14 Chess Championship, scoring 6½/9 (+5–1=3).
  Blübaum earned his first international master (IM) norm at the Neckar-Open in April 2011, scoring 6½/9, and his second at the Helmut Kohl Tournament in July 2011, scoring 6/9. He achieved his final IM norm at the German Chess Championship in March 2012, scoring 5½/9. He was awarded the title by FIDE in April 2012, at the age of 14. He participated in the World Junior Chess Championship in August, placing twenty-fifth with a score of 8/13 (+6–3=4),
  and in the World U18 Chess Championship in November, scoring 7/11 (+5–2=4) for a fourteenth-place finish. He placed twelfth in the 2013 German Chess Championship, scoring 5½/9 (+3–1=5).
  Blübaum earned his first two GM norms in the 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 Chess Bundesliga seasons, with scores of 6½/9 and 8/12, respectively. In September 2014, he competed in the 2nd Grenke Chess Classic, scoring 3½/7 (+2–2=3) for a fifth-place finish. He scored his first victory over a 2700+ opponent in this event, defeating the German No. 1 Arkadij Naiditsch in the second round. Later in September, Blübaum competed again in the World U18 Chess Championship, placing fourth with a score of 7½/11 (+5–1=5). At the 2014 Bavarian Chess Championship, held from 25 October to 2 November, he achieved his third GM norm, scoring 7/9. He earned an additional GM norm at the German Chess Championship in November 2014, scoring 6/9. He was officially awarded the GM title by FIDE in April 2015, at the age of 18.
  In July 2015, he competed for Germany on board 1 at the European Youth Team Chess Championship. He scored 5½/7 (+4–0=3), helping Germany win the tournament. In September, he placed third at the World Junior Chess Championship with 9/13 (+6–1=6), one point behind Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Mikhail Antipov. Antipov won the tournament due to a better tiebreak score than Duda.
caption: Blübaum competing for Werder Bremen in the Chess Bundesliga, October 2013
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