The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, Florida, Sunday, January 09, 2000 - Page 757
When Bobby Fischer became the youngest grandmaster ever in 1958 at the age of 15 years, 6 months and 1 day, he established a benchmark that seemed destined to endure. It was all the more impressive because of the sheer level of his chess talent.
In 1992, 34 years later, Judit Polgar of Hungary finally broke his record by a single month and opened the door for others to follow. In the relatively brief span that has followed, four other teens — Peter Leko of Hungary, Etienne Bacrot of France, Rusian Pnomariov of Ukraine and apparently Bu Xiangzhi of China — have each further lowered the mark.
The latest, Bu Xiangzhi, the first sub-14-year-old grandmaster in history (if his application is approved) is more than one year, seven months younger than Fischer when he qualified for the title.
Despite their precocity, none of his “successors” have yet shown that they possess him dazzling genius, although Leko — already among the top 10 grandmasters — is a likely future challenger for the world title. However they compare to Fischer, the five are nevertheless harbingers of a new age of chess in which tournament activity and the number of top players have swelled enormously and chess knowledge is easily available via books, databases and Web sites.
How much younger will our future grandmaster prodigies be? If we judge by the quality of play of top 8 and 9 year olds in recent junior tournaments, it is virtually certain that at least a year or two more can be shaved off his record. And it will take much less than 30 or 40 years to do it.
