Chess

The extraordinary French prodigy Etienne Bacrot, has become the youngest grandmaster in history. His score of 61/2 out of 9 at the tournament in Enghien, near Paris, surpassed the qualifying mark for his final grandmaster norm by half a point. At 14 years and two months, he is more than a year younger than the age at which Bobby Fischer and Judit Polgar gained their titles, and three months younger than the Hungarian, Peter Leko.

The most impressive aspect of Bacrot's play is its maturity. Most mini- masters have combined a high degree of tactical proficiency with natural positional judgement, but the game of the 14-year old Nigel Short or Judit Polgar, for example, also displayed clear gaps in their strategic understanding.

With Bacrot, there is nothing missing. Look at this game from the fifth round in Enghien. White's play displays all the calm assurance of a master technician such as Smyslov. Black's 7...Na5 looked fishy and led to his losing space in the centre. Bacrot's plan of Bh3, Nh4, Ng2 and Ne3 was just the way to exploit it.

Black tried to fight his way back into the game with 25...b5?! and a push of his centre pawns, but 29.f4! and 30.g4! (to stop any nonsense with ...Ng4) was the perfect refutation. At the end, 45.Rxf7+! polished matters off neatly, when 45...Nxf7 would have lost to 46.Bd4+ and 46.Bxa1.

Only Bobby Fischer played so convincingly at such a young age.

White: Etienne Bacrot

Black: Jean Luc Chabanon

1 d4 Nf6 24 Ne3 Ne7

2 Nf3 e6 25 Qd3 b5

3 c4 Bb4+ 26 cxb5 d5

4 Bd2 Qe7 27 Ba1 d4

5 g3 Nc6 28 Ng2 Nf6

6 Nc3 0-0 29 f4 Qh3

7 Bg2 Na5 30 g4 Qxg4

8 b3 b6 31 h3 Qe6

9 0-0 Bb7 32 fxe5 Nh5

10 Qc2 Rac8 33 Bxd4 Rd8

11 Rfd1 c5 34 e4 Rd7

12 a3 Bxc3 35 a4 a6

13 Bxc3 cxd4 36 bxa6 Rxb4

14 Rxd4 d6 37 a7 Rxa4

15 Rad1 Rfd8 38 Qb5 Qc6

16 Bb4 Ne8 39 Qxc6 Nxc6

17 R4d2 Nc6 40 Bc5 Rxd2

18 Bc3 e5 41 Rxd2 Kg7

19 Bh3 Rb8 42 Rd7 Ng3

20 Nh4 g6 43 e6 Ne5

21 Ng2 Bc8 44 Ne1 Ra1

22 Bxc8 Rdxc8 45 Rxf7+ Kh6

23 b4 Qe6 46 e7 resigns