International Master (2016); Grandmaster (2018); Asian U12 Champion (2015); Iranian Champion (2016, 2019); Asian Blitz Champion (2018)
In January, 2016, Alireza Firouzja won the Iranian national championship at age 12, with a score of 8-3. As of May 2016, he was the highest rated player in the world under 14. Along with Parham Maghsoodloo (who commandeered their top board) and Arash Tahbaz (8 out of 9 games played at their 4th seat), the 3 each scored 7.5 for Iran and a team win at the 2016 World youth chess Olympiad(1). Firouzja also earned the silver medal on second board at that event. He scored eight points from nine games at the 2017 WYCO(2) playing as Iran's second board.
At the FIDE World Cup in September 2019, Firouzja defeated Arman Pashikian and Daniil Dubov in rounds one and two, respectively. This made Firouzja the first Iranian player to reach the third round of a Chess World Cup. In round three, he faced the number-one seed Ding Liren. Firouzja drew with Ding in the two classical games, but lost both of the rapid tiebreakers and was eliminated from the tournament.
Firouzja participated in the 2020 annual Norway Chess supertournament, in Stavanger. The tournament was held with a football scoring system (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss). In the case of a draw, players played an armageddon game for an additional 1/2 point. Firouzja finished in second place, behind World Champion Magnus Carlsen and ahead of Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana and Jan-Krzysztof Duda.
He is the second-youngest player ever to reach a rating of 2700 (after Wei Yi), at the age of 16 years and 1 month. By his eighteenth birthday in June 2021 he was rated 2759 and ranked 13th in the world.
In September 2021, Firouzja finished in second place in the Norway Chess supertournament, behind Magnus Carlsen, but ahead of a field including World Championship challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi and former challenger Sergey Karjakin. He scored +5 -2 =3 in standard time control games, and moved into the world's top 10 for the first time in the October 2021 rating list.
In November 2021, he won the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament (+6 -1 =4), which qualified him for the Candidates Tournament 2022.
Since 2019, he has been based in France, and he became a French citizen in July 2021.
References / Sources
(1) http://wyco2016chess.sk/en (2016 World youth chess Olympiad), (2) http://www.chess-results.com/tnr319... (2017 World Youth Chess Olympiad).
Wikipedia article: Alireza Firouzja
Kibitzing
