The Youngest 2800 Rated Chess Player Ever!

Safwan
Getting Into Chess
Published in
4 min readNov 25, 2021

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Alireza Firoujza (source: FIDE page)

The European Team Championship has just finished with Ukraine winning their gold medal and a first place for the first time. However, the main focus of the event is a 18-year-old Alireza Firouzja who led France to the second place in the European Team Championship 2021.

While there are more than 1000 grandmasters in the world, only fourteen of them crossed 2800 rating barrier. The Iranian born and now the French number one player Grandmaster Alireza Firouzja is the most recent to cross 2800 rating after scoring a dazzling 8 out of 9 points at European Team Championship. On December 1st when the official Fide rating list is being published, Alireza will be 2804 world number two, beating the current World Champion Magnus Carlsen by six months.

He became the youngest ever to join the 2800 club at 18 years and five months. Grandmaster and the current world chess champion Magnus Carlsen was also 18 years old but earned the 2800 rating just nearly before turning nineteen. With the win on Sunday the 21st November 2021, Firouzja is also the new world number-two, behind Magnus Carlsen in the live rankings.

He won the Fide Grand Swiss in Riga and qualified for the Candidates tournament 2022, before now going on to produce an absolutely amazing 3015 rating performance in European Team Championship, in Terme Catez, Slovenia.

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Safwan
Getting Into Chess

I am a MSc Mathematics graduate, love to play chess, read books, movies, go out for cycling and for a jog.