Étienne Bacrot

Étienne Bacrot (French pronunciation: ​; born January 22, 1983 in Lille, Nord) is a French chess grandmaster and currently ranked No. 2 in France.

He started playing at age 4; by 10, young Bacrot was already winning junior competitions and in 1996, at 13 years of age, he won against Vasily Smyslov. He became a Grandmaster in March 1997 at the age of 14 years and 2 months, making him the youngest person to that date to have held the title (later in December, Ruslan Ponomariov took his record).

He has won several competitions and notable games. He first passed the mark of 2700 in Elo rating in 2004. In January 2005, he became the first French player to enter the top 10. His highest Elo rating ever was 2749 in November 2013.

Bacrot scored 6/8 in the 37th Chess Olympiad in 2006 against opponents averaging 2640, gaining 13 Elo points. This earned him the bronze medal for the third best individual performance in the Olympiad. One of his notable wins was against top American grandmaster Gata Kamsky.

Bacrot served as one of the four advisors to the world team in the 1999 Kasparov versus the World event.

He has a son, Alexandre, with Nathalie Bonnafous.

Étienne Bacrot. French chess Grandmaster. Italian Team Championship, Civitanova Marche (Italy), April 29th/May 3rd, 2015.

Annual hometown game

As well as playing in tournaments and team competitions, Bacrot has since 1995 played an annual six-game match against a prominent player in his home town of Albert. In 1996 he beat Vasily Smyslov 5-1, in 1997 lost to Viktor Korchnoi 4-2, in 1998 defeated Robert Hübner 3½-2½, in 1999 lost to Alexander Beliavsky 3½-2½, in 2000 lost to Nigel Short 4-2, in 2001 tied 3-3 with Emil Sutovsky, in 2002 beat Boris Gelfand 3½-2½, and in 2004 won against Ivan Sokolov 3½-2½ (there was no match in 2003).

Notable results

• Seven times French champion (becoming at 16 years old the youngest French champion ever) with five in a row from 1999 to 2003 and then in 2008 and 2012.
• Beat Boris Gelfand at 19 years old 3½-2½ and Ivan Sokolov at 21 years old 3½-2½ in Albert.
• Beat Judit Polgár 3-1 in a rapid match at age 16 years old in Bastia, tied Anatoly Karpov in a rapid match 3-3 at 17 years old.
• Won Enghien-les-Bains tournament in 1997 ahead of Viktor Korchnoi doing his final GM norm at 14 years old and 4 months.
• Won Lausanne young masters in 1999 beating Ruslan Ponomariov in final.
• Qualified for the quarter-final of the world rapid chess championships in 2003 in Cap d'Agde.
• Accomplished an 11/11 score in French team championship in 2004.
• Won Petrosian memorial with the world team in 2004 with the tied 3rd individual performance.
• Won Karpov Poikovsky tournament in 2005 ahead of Viktor Bologan, Alexander Grischuk, Peter Svidler and Alexey Dreev.
• Finished third at Dortmund Sparkassen prestigious super tournament in 2005.
• Finished third at the 2005 FIDE world cup beating Alexander Grischuk for bronze. This qualified him for the Candidates tournament of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2007 in May-June 2007, although he would have qualified on rating anyway. However he was eliminated from the Candidates in the first round of matches, losing 3½-½ to Gata Kamsky.
• Won the 2006 FiNet Chess960 Open with a 9½/11 score.
• Won the 2008 French Championship.
• Won the 2009 Aeroflot Open.
• Third at the 2010 Nanjing tournament behind Carlsen and Anand.
• Won 2011 Poikovsky Karpov tournament with 5½/9 ahead of Sergey Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana, Dimitry Jakovenko.

Team results

• European team chess championship playing with France: 2nd in 2001, 3rd in 2005.
• Many times French team champion and European club champion with Nao chess club.

Youth results

Étienne Bacrot (1999)

• World champion in under-10 years old category.
• World champion in under-12 years old category.
• Beat Levon Aronian in a match in Albert.
• IM at 12 years old.
• GM at 14 years old setting a new record at that time.

Rankings

• His Elo rating has been above 2700 since July 2004.
• Ranked No. 9 in the world in every 2005 FIDE list, playing 55 games.

Results Timeline for Chess World Cup