Étienne Bacrot

Étienne Bacrot (French pronunciation: [etjɛn bakʁo];

born 22 January 1983) is a French chess grandmaster, Étienne Bacrot
and as a child, a chess prodigy.

He competed at the Candidates Matches in 2007 and

won the Aeroflot Open in 2009. He passed 2700 FIDE
rating in 2004 and in January 2005 he became the first
French player to enter the top 10.

Bacrot won an individual bronze medal at the 37th

Chess Olympiad in 2006 for his performance on board
one,[1] as well as four medals at the World Team
Championships.
Étienne Bacrot in 2023
Country France
Chess career Born 22 January 1983
Lille, France
He started playing at age 4. By 10, Bacrot was winning
junior competitions, and in 1996, at 13 years of age, he Title Grandmaster (1997)
won against Vasily Smyslov. He became a FIDE rating 2640 (https://ratings.fide.com/pr
Grandmaster in March 1997 at the age of 14 years and ofile/605506) (February 2025)
2 months, making him the youngest person at the time Peak rating 2749 (November 2013)
to have held the title until Ruslan Ponomariov took the Ranking No. 94 (http://ratings.fide.com/to
record that December. He was coached previously by plist.phtml) (February 2025)
Josif Dorfman.
Peak ranking No. 9 (January 2005)
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, and a daughter, Victoria, with Nathalie Bonnafous.

In 2023 Bacrot took part in the Chess World Cup in Baku as the 52nd seed, making it to the fourth round
after defeating Nay Lin Tun, Aleksandar Indjic and the 13th seed Yu Yangyi from China, before losing to
Indian GM Vidit Gujrathi. He, then, participated in the FIDE Grand Swiss 2023, where he scored 6,5/11
and was in contention for a top 2 finish until round 8 when he lost against Fabiano Caruana after
blundering in time pressure. In this strong tournament he beat Belgian GM Daniel Dardha, German GM
Niclas Huschenbeth and 2720-rated GM Yu Yangyi, with a TPR of 2749. After the Grand Swiss, Bacrot
played on board 1 for France in the European Team Chess Championship scoring 4/8 as France finished
in seventh place.
Annual hometown game
Bacrot has played several matches against prominent players 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 (there was no match in 2003) won against
Ivan Sokolov 3½–2½.

Notable results
Eight 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, 2012 and 2017.
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 Bacrot, Italian Team Championship,
Viktor Korchnoi doing his final GM norm at 14 years old Civitanova Marche, 29 April/3 May
and 4 months. 2015
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 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.[2]
Won the 2009 Aeroflot Open.
Third at the 2010 Nanjing tournament behind Carlsen and Anand.[3]
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 and 2nd
in 2021.
 Many times French team champion and European club champion with Nao chess club.

Youth results
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
Ranked No. 9 in the world in every 2005 FIDE list, playing 55
games.
Bacrot (1999)
References
1. Schachserver Der Wiener Zeitung (Austria), "37th Chess Olympiad 2006" (http://schach.wie
nerzeitung.at/tnr3410.aspx?art=23&lan=1&flag=30&snr=5) Archived (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20171208061942/http://schach.wienerzeitung.at/tnr3410.aspx?art=23&lan=1&flag=30
&snr=5) 8 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine
2. Chessvine Article, "GM Etienne Bacrot wins French Championship" (http://chessvine.com/ar
chives/94-GM-Etienne-Bacrot-wins-French-Championship.html)
3. "Nanjing R10 Magnus wins with 2900+ performance" (http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetai
l.asp?newsid=6778). ChessBase. 30 October 2010. Retrieved 20 March 2011.

External links
Etienne Bacrot (https://ratings.fide.com/profile/605506) rating card at FIDE
Etienne Bacrot (https://www.chess.com/players/etienne-bacrot) player profile at Chess.com
Etienne Bacrot (https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=29565) player profile
and games at Chessgames.com
Étienne Bacrot (http://www.olimpbase.org/players/njnxfl3f.html) Chess Olympiad record at
OlimpBase.org
Interview with Etienne Bacrot at Chessdom.com (https://web.archive.org/web/20140703011
223/http://interviews.chessdom.com/etienne-bacrot) at the Wayback Machine (archived
2014-07-03)

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