How young is the record holder?

Bridge and chess compete for toughest-game bragging rights. 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 Sept 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.