Recently, we held a poll to see who the readers of About Chess thought were the best French chess players of all time. The voting was close, and featured a list of strong French masters dating back several centuries. In the end, our readers chose the following five players as the top French players of all-time.
1. François-André Danican Philidor
Philidor (1726-1795) is one of the most influential names in chess history; a famous rook-and-pawn endgame position bears his name, as does the solid Philidor Defense. His Analyse du jeu des Échecs was required reading for several generations of chess players, and was one of the greatest leaps in chess knowledge in the history of the game.
Of course, Philidor was quite the player too. He defeated Phillip Stamma, another leading player of his day, +8 -1 =1, in a match where Stamma was given White in every game. He also played three simultaneous blindfold games, a feat which seemed impossible to observers at the time, even if it would be fairly unremarkable today.
2. Louis de La Bourdonnais
La Bourdonnais (1795-1840) is often considered one of the earlier, unofficial World Champions. This title comes mostly on the strength of victories over Ireland's Alexander McDonnell, one of the other leading masters of the era. In the end, La Bourdonnais and McDonnell contested six separate matches. La Bourdonnais racked up a +45 -27 =13 combined score, leaving no doubts as to who was the stronger player.
3. Étienne Bacrot
The only modern player on this list, Bacrot (1983-) has been the top French player for most of the early 21st century. Although just 26, he has already won six French national championships, was a junior World Champion in two different age groups, and most recently won the 2009 Aeroflot Open. While he hasn't made a strong run for a World Championship, he has made it to the Candidates Tournament and achieved respectable results in some of the chess world's most prestigious tournaments.4. David Janowski
Janowski (1868-1927) was a Polish-born chess master who took up professional chess after moving to Paris. He was one of the top players in the early 20th century, and earned the right to play Emanual Lasker in a World Championship match in 1910. Janowski fared poorly in that match (-8 =3), but his results against most of the other top masters of the day were credible. He was known as a talented tactician who worked hard to prove his ideas -- even ones which proved to be poor -- were correct over the board.
5. Pierre Saint-Amant
Saint-Amant (1800-1872) is best known for playing and losing a match against Howard Staunton, another of the many matches of the era which are sometimes considered unofficial World Championship contests. However, Saint-Amant also won a shorter match with Staunton, and was certainly one of the best players of the mid-19th century.
