How young is the record holder?

Bridge and chess compete for toughest-game bragging rights. In Asia, the board game go is included in the debate. As one guideline, who is youngest ever: a bridge life master, a chess grandmaster or a first-dan professional go player?

On May 27, 2020, three days after his eighth birthday, Andrew Chen of San Jose, California, became the youngest life master. The previous record holder, Zach Garrison, had achieved the milestone when he was nine, a few months before Chen was born!

Chen, whose parents, Sarah and Steve, and older brother, Charlie, also play, took his first lesson in September 2018. Strangely, he benefited from the pandemic. When his school was unexpectedly closed, he had time to play in online duplicates that were awarding masterpoints.

In today’s deal, Chen played in four spades, partnering his father online. Dad’s support double of the unsound overcall showed three cards in spades.

When West led a low club, Chen knew that East had at least one heart royal; otherwise, West would have led the heart king. This meant that West probably had the other honor cards for his two-diamond bid. So, Chen cashed his top spades, dropping the doubleton queen offside. Declarer drew the missing trump and eventually lost one heart and one diamond. Plus 450 was a tied top.

The go record was broken earlier this year by a 10-year-old girl, Sumire Nakamura.

Abhimanyu Mishra of New Jersey is the youngest chess grandmaster in history at 12 years, 4 months and 25 days. On June 30, he broke a record that had stood for 19 years.

These ages imply chess is harder than Go, which is tougher than bridge. Seems right to me.