Joël Lautier

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Joël Lautier

Full name	Joël Lautier
Country	France
Born	April 12, 1973 (1973-04-12) (age 35) Scarborough, Canada

Title	Grandmaster


FIDE rating	2657 (No. 63 on the April 2008 FIDE ratings list)
Peak rating	2687 (January 2002)

This article uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.

Joël Lautier (born 12 April 1973) is a French chess grandmaster. Lautier is one of the strongest grandmasters from France. He was World Junior Chess Championship winner in 1988 on tiebreak at Adelaide, and has won the French Chess Championship in 2004 and 2005. He is in 2005 the second best French GM after Étienne Bacrot. He is also one of the founders of ACP, Association of Chess Professionals (www.chess-players.org). He has been the president of the association in 2004-2005. He is one of only three players (the others being Ivanchuk and Peter Svidler) to have beaten every world champion dating back to 1975 (Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Khalifman, Viswanathan Anand, Ruslan Ponomariov, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, and Veselin Topalov).

He first came to the attention of the world in 1986 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, when, at age 13, he won the World Under-14 Championship by defeating both Sofia Polgar and Judit Polgar. Sofia and Judit tied for second.

He was married to the Woman Grandmaster Almira Skripchenko, although they are now divorced.

He beat Garry Kasparov with the black pieces in Linares in 1994:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d3 d6 6. Bb3 h6 7. h3 a6 8. Nbd2 Be6 9. Bc2 Ba7 10. Qe2 Qe7 11. b4 d5 12. a4 b5 13. O-O O-O 14. axb5 axb5 15. d4 exd4 16. e5 dxc3 17. exf6 Qxf6 18. Nb3 Nxb4 19. Bb1 d4 20. Rxa7 c2 21. Rxa8 cxb1=Q 22. Rxf8+ Kxf8 23. Qxb5 Qxb3 24. Qb8+ Ke7 25. Qxc7+ Ke8 26. Bd2 Qd8 0-1