Mediaboss Marketing

Alireza Firouzja recently threatened to win the Tata Steel Mastersat the age of 16, and even though he hit the wall of Carlsen, Caruana and Anandhe still starts February with an extraordinary 2726 rating. Hes clearly one ofthe best 16-year-old chess players of all time, but in this new 2-part articleFrench FM Joachim Iglesias looks at the other contenders. In Part 1 he lookschronologically at players from Mikhail Botvinnik to Bobby Fischer, GarryKasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Judit Polgar.

by Joachim Iglesias

In this two-part article were going to take a look at thesixteen best 16-year-old players in the history of chess. From MikhailBotvinnik to Alireza Firouzja, youll see that even if no-ones serious at 17(Rimbaud) they can be at 16 in chess!

As with any selection, there is of course an element ofsubjectivity.

Among the notable absentees are child prodigies from an erawhen there were few tournaments and they only experienced their first greatsuccesses in their twenties.

Paul Morphy, born in 1837, won his first US Championship in1857, at the age of 20. It was his first major tournament

Jose-Raul Capablanca, born in 1888, won a match against theCuban Champion when he was 13, but he only gained international recognition bydefeating Frank Marshall in 1909

Samuel Reshevsky was a child star, but his career onlyreally began with his victory in the National Open in Tulsa in 1931 - he was 20 yearsold at the time

Among the players from the more recent past who dontfeature here Anatoly Karpov and Vishy Anand are the greatest champions.

And now let's look at the sixteen best 16-year-olds in chess history, inchronological order:

Misha learned to play chess at the age of 12. The man whowas to become the patriarch of Soviet chess started to be talked about at 14years old, when he beat the World Champion Jose-Raul Capablanca in a simul. Twoyears later, in 1927, Botvinnik finished 5th in the worlds strongest nationalcontest, the USSR Championship. He won a miniature with Black againsttheoretician Vladimir Makogonov:

Young Misha concentrated his pieces on the kingside, puttingmaximum pressure on White, who cracked: 23.g4??fxg4! 24.Qxe4 and here not 24...gxf3 25.Qxf3, which would prolong thecontest, but 24...gxh3! and White resigned, since 25.Bh1 h2+26.Kg2 Qh3 is mate.

Mikhail would once again finish 5th in the USSR Championshipat the age of 18 before winning it as a 20-year-old. He went on to be World Champion from 1948 to 1957, 1958to 1960 and 1961 to 1963.

Boris Vasilievich Spassky was spotted very early on by theSoviet Chess Federation, which awarded him a monthly scholarship from the ageof 11 and allowed him to play his first major tournament abroad in 1953.

The young Borya celebrated turning 16 during a tournamentin Bucharest where he finished 4th out of 20 players, behind Alexander Tolush(Spasskys coach) and future World Champions Tigran Petrosian and Vasily Smyslovand tied with GMs Laszlo Szabo and Isaac Boleslavsky. That performance madeSpassky an International Master, a title that was much harder to achieve at thetime than it is to become a grandmaster today.

The icing on the cake was that Boris won the tournamentsbeauty price thanks to his magnificent win over Smyslov, who four years laterwould become World Champion:

33.Nxg7! The mainidea is 33...Kxg7 34.Rg3+ Kf8 35.Rxf7+!! with mate-in-2. The player who wasgoing to win the famous Zurich Candidates Tournament a few months later tried 33...Rxd6 but resigned after 34.Nxe6, since after 34Rxd2 35.Rg3+ its mate next move.

Spassky dethroned Petrosian as the youngest grandmaster inhistory in 1955, at the age of 18. Petrosian had become a grandmaster at 23. Boris Spassky was World Champion from 1969 to 1972.

Robert James Fischer was only 13 when he won the Game of theCentury against Donald Byrne. He became US Champion for the first time in1957, at 14 years of age.

In 1958, at the age of 15, Bobby became the youngestgrandmaster of all time, beating Spasskys record by three years. Were so usedto seeing 13 or 14-year-old grandmasters nowadays that its hard to see whatthe fuss was about at the time. You should know, however, that if not forFischer, Spasskys record would have lasted for 25 years, until 1980, when GarryKasparov became a grandmaster at the age of 17! And Fischers record was onlybeaten 33 years later, in 1991, when Judit Polgar became a grandmaster a monthquicker than Fischer.

In 1959 Bobby Fischer competed in the Bled-Zagreb CandidatesTournament. Mikhail Tal won that 8-player quadruple round-robin, thus winningthe right to face Mikhail Botvinnik. 16-year-old Bobby tied for 5th place withSvetozar Gligoric, ahead of Fridrik Olafsson and Pal Benko. In the first roundhe beat Paul Keres, who would finish 2nd.

Keres was the favourite to win the Candidates and thegreat theoretician sacrificed his queen with 11.Bxf6!? Nxf6 12.e5! Bb7 13.exf6! the only move that couldjustify the previous two - 13...Bxf314.Bxf3 Bxf6 15.Bxa8

White has a temporary material advantage despite being aqueen down, but Bobby shut out the bishop on a8 with 15d5!?, inviting White to sacrifice: 16.Bxd5 Bxd4 17.Rxd4 exd5 18.Nxd5 Qc5 19.Re1+ Kf8 20.c3

The position is more or less equal, but the youngsterdominated his opponent and ended the game with a nice Epaulette mate:

Instead of resigning, Keres played 53.Rc4, allowing 53Qe5# mate on the board!

Bobby Fischer was World Champion from 1972 until 1975.

Alexander Nikitin, Gariks first coach, brought him tothe famous Botvinnik school when the future star was only 10 years old. Inaddition to Nikitins coaching, Garry could take advantage of lessons from theformer World Champion as well as those of Mark Dvoretsky.

Thanks to coaching from the worlds best chess school, Garikwas able to play his first major international tournament outside of the USSRat the age of only 16. Of the 16 players in Banja Luka in 1979 all weregrandmasters except for Kasparov and another talent born in 1953, GuillermoGarcia, who went on to become a grandmaster. Among the big names we find formerWorld Champion Tigran Petrosian, Ulf Andersson, Jan Smejkal, Walter Browne

Garik won the tournament with an unbeaten 11.5/15, twopoints ahead of second place!

Kasparov may not yet have had the thousand eyes thatEnglish GM Tony Miles remarked upon, but he was already a monster in tacticalpositions. Heres the end of his game against GM Slavoljub Marjanovic:

Black was counting on 26.exf6 Qc6 and, even if White has theadvantage, nothing is decided yet. Kasparov instead played with power and precision: 26.Qxh5! Qc6 27.f3 Be7 28.Bh7+! Kf8 29.Qf5+Ke8 30.Bg6+ Kd8 31.Rd1+

If 31Kc7 then 32.e6+! is decisive. The grandmasterpreferred to give up his queen with 31Qd5and resigned a few moves later.

Thanks to that tournament Kasparov obtained a first ratingof 2595, 15th place on the January 1st 1980 FIDE rating list. Garry Kasparovwas World Champion from 1985 until 2000 and the world no. 1 for over 21 years.

Jol surprised the chess world by winning the World JuniorChampionship (Under 20) when he was only 15 years old! The Frenchman finished aheadof Vassily Ivanchuk (19 years old), Boris Gelfand (20) and Gregory Serper (19),and 32 years later the record still stands. Jol became a grandmaster in 1990(nowadays he would have become a grandmaster for winning the World Juniors) andin July of that year, at the age of 17, he was no. 54 in the world, with a 2570rating.

Jol was only 15 years old when he defeated the very strongEnglish Grandmaster John Nunn in great style.

In this typical Kings Indian position the most played moves were 13.c5, 13.Rc1 and 13.b4, with White attacking at full strength on thequeenside and hoping to be quicker than Black will be on the kingside. After havingkept up with the latest theory, Lautier unleashed a move that was almost anovelty at the time and would go on to be one of the main variations - 13.g4!, with the aim of slowing downthe black initiative.

A few moves later and the kingside was perfectly blockaded.Or was it?

Black cant wait around: if White gets to play one moreprophylactic move like Kh2 hell have his hands free on the queenside. TheEnglishman sacrificed with 18...Nxg5!but Lautier didnt respond with the nave 19.hxg5?, after which Black wouldhave uncorked 19...Nxd5! with major complications, but 19.Kh2! After 19...Nh7 20.Kxh3Black didnt have enough play against the fearless white king.

The end was aesthetically pleasing:

In time trouble 39.Rxf7?? would have been a terrible mistake, sinceBlack has a perpetual on the 2nd rank! Jol instead chose the most efficientand beautiful win: 39.Qg1!!. IfBlack takes the queen with check, 39Rxg1+, hell have to give it back withcheck on the next move and transpose into a resignable ending. Nunn played 39Bf2, but after 40.Rxf7 Rxg1+ 41.Kh2 Black resigned since the checks will quicklyrun out.

Jol Lautier reached the world no. 13 spot in 1995 andobtained his peak rating of 2687 in 2002. He quit chess in 2005, no longerhaving any chance of achieving the goal hed set himself: to become WorldChampion.

Gata didnt wait until the Banter Blitz Cup in order tobecome a Famous F*ckingLegend. On the July 1990 rating list, at the age of 16 years and one month,Gata was already the world no. 8. It was therefore no surprise when he won theTilburg 1990 supertournament, tying for first place with Vassily Ivanchuk aheadof Boris Gelfand, Nigel Short, Jan Timman, Ulf Andersson, Predrag Nikolic andYasser Seirawan.

The following year he gave a real positional lesson to noneother than Anatoly Karpov:

The position after 12.Kxd2should have been perfect for the former World Champion. Facing a kid, Karpovwas playing for two results, right?

Karpov went on to play the imprecise 19.Bc3? and Kamsky brilliantly punished him with 19...Na7! threatening Ba4. After 20.Bd2, Gata didnt repeat moves butplayed 20...Nb5! provoking the weakening21.e5. The following moves by Black wouldhave pleased Nimzowitsch and Petrosian: Gata went on to play Bc6, Na7, Bd5 andNc6, with a perfect blockade on the light squares.

On move 48 Gata sacrificed a pawn in order to create apassed pawn:

48...g5!! 49.hxg5 h4+with an advantage despite being a pawn down.

It all ended with a little combination la Capablanca:

56...Rg2+ 57.Kf1Rxe2! 58.Kxe2 Bc4 59.d5!? exd5 60.Kd2 Bxd3 61.Kxd3 d4! with an easily wonending.

In 1996 Anatoly Karpov took revenge by beating Gata Kamskyin the FIDE World Championship match. After that defeat Gata didnt play againuntil 2004, but would still go on to win the 2007 World Cup.

Kramnik won the Dortmund Open (not the closed grandmastertournament) in 1992. Garry Kasparov said in an interview in New in Chess:

The most talented of all the players I have seen here isVladimir Kramnik. In terms of talent he is definitely No. 1. I have never saidthis before, but I think he is the only one who plays as well as I did at thesame age. I have always smiled regarding the talent of Judit Polgar, andlaughed regarding Gata Kamsky, and I do not believe the other players of theDortmund Festival. But 16-year-old Kramnik is already playing big-time chess. Hisis a genuine chess talent. There are many players, but they don't play chess,they move the pieces. Whereas Kramnik plays chess. (Quoted in the book Kramnik,My Life and Games)

Kramnik made real chess history at the Manila Olympiad inJune 1992. Russia owed its first victory since the collapse of the USSR inlarge part to the young Vladimir, who achieved the best result of thetournament, with 8.5/9 and a 2958 performance. The competition ended on the dayof Vovas 17th birthday.

During that Olympiad he easily converted his advantage in anending against the formidable GM Yasser Seirawan:

With Black Kramnik played 27...Kf8! since the exchange of knights doesnt allow an easy draw.For example: 28.Nxc5 Rxc5 29.Rd6 Ra5!. Seirawan played 28.Rd6 and Kramnik responded precisely with 28...Ne4! 29.Rxa6 Rxc4 30.Kf1 Rc2! with a clear advantage. Whitewas helpless until the end:

59...f4! 60.Ra1 g2!61. Kf2 Kh2 White resigns.

Vladimir Kramnik was World Champion from 2000 to 2007.

Known as the Queen of Chess and the best female player of alltime, Judit Polgar for a long time and even still could claim to be the greatesttalent in the history of chess! (even if she would challenge the word talent).On January 1st 1989, at 12 and a half, she was 57th in the world with a 2555rating, a record that will probably never be broken. In 1991 she finallydethroned Bobby Fischer as the youngest grandmaster of all time, 33 years afterthat record was set! Judit was 15 years and 4 months old.

At 16 years old, she was the joint winner of the Hastingssupertournament, tied with Evgeny Bareev and above the strong grandmasters JonSpeelman, Matthew Sadler, John Nunn, Mikhail Gurevich and Lev Polugaevsky.

Heres how she destroyed the very strong GrandmasterAlexander Chernin when she was only 14 years old, in 1990:

22...Rxg2+! 23.Rxg2Bxh3 24.Ne4 Ne5!! The point, and the only move that doesnt lose! 25.Nxe5 Bxe5 and White is helpless.

Chernin couldnt find anything better than 26.Ng5, but after 26...Bxg2+ 27.Kxg2 Qxg5+ Black was attacking with a material advantage.White resigned two moves later.

Judit Polgar reached world no. 8, with a peak rating of2735.

More:
The 16 best 16-year-olds of all time | Part 1 - chess24