Étienne Bacrot - France's #1 Chess Player

Étienne Bacrot (born January 22, 1983 in Picardie, France) is a French chess grandmaster.

He started playing at 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 competition and notable games. He first passed the mark of 2700 inElo rating in 2004. In January 2005, he became the first French player to enter the top 10. His highest Elo rating ever was 2731 in April 2005. On the January 2009 FIDE list, Bacrot had an Elo rating of 2721, making him number 21 in the world and France's number 1.

Bacrot scored 6/8 in the 37th Chess Olympiad in 2006 against opponents averaging 2640, gaining 13 elo. 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.