The Idea
The 2006 comedy Idiocracy paints a terrifyingly funny vision of the future. After sleeping for 500 years, an average man wakes up in a world where humanity has lost all critical thinking. People water their crops with sports drinks because commercials told them "it has electrolytes." Entertainment is reduced to mindless TV, and society is close to collapsing.
For Evren Ucok, a successful entrepreneur and chess supporter, the movie reads like a warning label. With kids hooked on 15-second TikTok reels and AI algorithms making every decision for them, Evren fears that logical intelligence - the most important type of intelligence, including the capacity to reason, learn, and adapt is degrading, as evidenced by the most recent PISA scores across the Western world, heavily discussed in the Economist edition of 08 September 2026.
Evren believes that chess is one of the best cures for the attention crisis gripping today’s youth, so many of whom are trapped in the dopamine loop of short videos. Where fast-paced reels train young minds to demand instant dopamine without thinking, chess does the opposite: it forces players to calculate, evaluate, and ask "why?" before committing to a move. It replaces passive scrolling with deep, focused concentration. Evren estimates that playing ca. 50 to 100 hours of competitive chess (even between classmates) improves concentration ability, humility, and logical reasoning meaningfully in children and pre-teens, and that the effect is permanent.
Backed by Real Commitment
That conviction is not just talk. Over the past three years, Evren has spent over $5 million on various chess causes. In particular, he supports some of the most promising young players in the world with help from renowned GM’s and super GM’s who provide regular coaching. The program goes far beyond coaching and tournament expenses, and includes career and tournament advice, chess camps, sports psychology, tailored nutrition, physical fitness and selective family stipends when necessary. Evren also backs the Marseille Chess Club (focused on top young talents in France and underprivileged kids in Marseille), the European Chess Union (focused on women’s and seniors’ chess), Monte Carlo Chess Club (which won the European Women’s Cup several times), and the Istanbul Chess Club where Evren cut his teeth as a young teen. He is also funding advanced technology, for example chess superengines that can calculate 500 million moves per second, a professional chess platform for serious players that provides advanced features, encourages social play within and between offline clubs and prevents bad behaviour (cheating, stalling, trolling). His team also researched micro-devices used in OTB cheating and alerted relevant FIDE, ECU and national authorities and tournament organisers.
The whole program started with a single talent: GM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, a Turkish prodigy who was on the brink of quitting chess for lack of support in August 2023, before he and his family met Evren through Selim Gurcan (FM, chess author and a close friend of Evren since their early teen years ca. 35-40 years ago). Evren agreed to support Yagiz for at least 5 years and “do whatever it takes” for him to realise his full potential. Selim’s close friend GM Mert Erdogdu agreed to coach Yagiz intensively. With their combined help, Yagiz went from zero GM norms to three GM norms in three consecutive tournaments, and the GM title followed soon after in April 2024.
As Yagiz got stronger and stronger, Mert passed the flag to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, former world #2 and also a long-term friend of Selim. The team also organised several training camps with top GMs and three different matches (titled: Clash of Generations) for Yagiz to play and train against super GM opponents. In these matches, Yagiz scored 12.5 points in 18 games and gained valuable experience in elite-level chess. This performance also helped him cross 2700 ELO (super GM level) at the age of 14, the youngest in history. Now 15, Yagiz is the world’s No. 1 junior (under 20).
The success of Yagiz encouraged Evren and Selim to support more prodigies, including Ediz Gurel and Isik Can, who, together with Yagiz, make up the top three in Turkiye by ELO, as well as the Turkish national team.
Gaining confidence with the program’s success, they soon began supporting top talents from other countries too.
Luca Protopopescu (age 10)
They started with Luca Protopopescu, a young talent from Marseille discovered by GM Mert Erdogdu, a close friend of Selim, who had coached Yagiz when he was younger. With Mert’s help, Luca became the youngest person in history to cross 2200 ELO - the rating level separating top amateurs from real professionals - at the age of 9 years and 5 days. A long and highly personalised congratulatory letter soon followed from President Emmanuel Macron of France.
Bodhana Sivanandan (age 11)
Evren started supporting Bodhana in January 2026 after Evren and Bodhana’s father, Sivanandan Velayutham, were introduced by UK chess legend Malcolm Pein (and soon became friends). Already a rising star, Bodhana soon became the youngest girl in history to defeat a 2600+ rated GM, breaking a record held since 1988 by chess legend Judit Polgar, who is widely considered to be the strongest woman chess player in history and featured in the popular Netflix documentary “Queen of Chess”. A couple of weeks after this success and after an ambitious chess camp in Marseille organised by her coach, GM Mert Erdogdu, she became the youngest British Women’s Champion in history at the age of 11.
Check out the game
Marc Llari (age 13)
Marc is no stranger to success. In June 2026, after working for 10 months with Mert, he won the U12 (under-12) World Cup with an impressive score of 9/11 and finished the event undefeated. The Marseille-trained prodigy also won his first IM norm at the Spilimbergo Masters tournament in Italy in August 2026, scoring 5.5/9 with draws against GM Jan Šubelj (2549) and GM Kirk Ghazarian (2535), for a 2456 performance rating.
Christian Glöckler (age 14)
Evren started supporting Christian in March 2026 after hearing about the impressive talent from IM Stefan Löffler. Shortly afterwards, the German IM won the Masters Open at the renowned 59th Biel International Chess Festival in July 2026 with a round to spare, scoring 8/10 with a 2597 performance and clinching his first grandmaster norm, sealed by a 9. round win over GM Dimitris Alexakis. Already rated above 2500, he now needs two more norms for the GM title.
Check out Christian's win over GM Dimitris Alexakis
Atilla Kuru (age 15)
Evren and Selim started supporting Atilla in Dec 2024 after meeting him and his parents through Turkish GM Dragan Solak. After his first GM norm at the 2024 European Individual Championship, Atilla took his second norm at the Sardinia World Chess Festival in May 2026. Days later, he finished second at the Young Talents GM Norm tournament in Stockholm. With his score of 6.5/9, he won 13 rating points and passed the critical threshold of 2500 ELO. Shortly after, at the 27th Sants Barcelona Open in August 2026, he secured his third and final GM norm. He finished the ten-round event unbeaten with a 2656 performance, taking his rating past 2520 and making him Turkiye's latest Grandmaster at 15.
Check out his game
Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus (Age 15)
In August 2026 and just after turning 15, Yagiz became the world's highest-rated junior (under 20) as well as the youngest person in history (by a wide margin) to exceed 2700 ELO.
At the recent 2026 Chess Olympiad, Yagiz was first board for Turkiye, playing against many top super GMs including Abdusattorov, Caruana and Keymer. Despite the difficult field, he scored 8/10 (6 wins, 4 draws) with a 2839 performance, which earned him the silver medal on board 1. He also gained 15 ELO points, increasing his live ELO to 2731 (#17 globally)
Aydin Suleymanli (age 21)
Azerbaijani talent Aydin Suleymanli showed steady improvement last year. He recently defeated Uzbek rising star Mukhiddin Madaminov 4.5–1.5 in a six-game match, pushing his rating above 2670 for the first time and placing him firmly in the top 50 of chess at #45. Coached by the legend Rustam Kasimcanov, the first world chess champion from Uzbekistan (another Turkic country) as well as by Shakhriyar from his home country, the young Turk is now playing board two for his country at the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand (behind Shakhriyar) and working towards reaching 2700 ELO.
Isik Can (age 21)
Oldest member of the prodigy group, GM Isik Can won the 2026 Liaocheng Rising Stars tournament in China without losing a game, defeating 2618-rated GM Aleksey Grebnev along the way. The 2025 Turkish Champion also led the University of Missouri to the US National Collegiate title. Studying business at the University of Missouri, Isik earned his GM title during his first semester, showing that academic and elite chess ambitions can go hand in hand. At the time this article is being written, Isik is playing board #3 for Turkiye in the 2026 Olympiad.
Clash of Prodigies
Top two of these prodigies, Aydin Suleymanli and Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, found themselves competing head-to-head at the Biel Masters Triathlon. Aydin finished second in the Biel Masters Triathlon and Yagiz Kaan third, behind only experienced Elite player Levon Aronian. Aydin had stepped in at short notice, and Yagiz posted the second-best result of the blitz phase - more evidence of the fearless, attacking chess that lit up his Tata Steel Masters run earlier in the year.
Marseille Chess Camp and Cannes Family Gathering
These impressive results are only part of the story. Beyond teaching concentration, humility, and improving logical reasoning, chess also brings people together, and it builds lasting bonds between players, coaches, and families, as two recent gatherings in the South of France showed.
At the training camp between 13 and 18 July hosted by Marseille-Echecs, which is headed by Laurie Delorme and William Azari, GM Mert Erdogdu and GM Pierre Laurent-Paoli trained with prodigies Bodhana Sivanandan, Marc Llari, Luca Protopopescu, and Joachim Le Geay. The reigning European Women’s Champion, 15-year-old Anastasiia Hnatyshyn (whom Evren met through his Ukrainian friend IM Igor Berezovsky) joined the camp as a guest for a few days. The camp turned out to be remarkably productive and impressive results followed shortly. Bodhana and Marc earned their first IM norms after a few weeks. Anastasiia now leads the strong Ukrainian women’s team at the 2026 Chess Olympiad.
The social bonding power of chess was on full display after the recent Cannes tournament in February 2026, attended by all the youngest prodigies. After the Cannes tournament, Evren and Mert gathered with Bodhana, Luca, Marc and their families to relax. They also played "Hand and Brain," the format in which one player names a piece and their partner has to find the move, a game that runs entirely on empathy and teamwork, something that no engine can replicate.
The fun continued over bughouse (four-person chess on steroids), where Evren and Bodhana again took on Mert and Luca. The latter team won all the bughouse games because they had been working closely for two years and they were able to communicate
More importantly, the concentration and human connection that Evren fears the digital world is quietly erasing were exactly what filled the room. Chess may sharpen the mind to survive an AI-driven world - but its greatest power, on the evidence of that afternoon and many others like it, is bringing people together through something wholly human.
This Article is Edited by Devansh Singh
