Breaking News: Drama in Grenke
If you have not heard of GM Alireza Firouzja, you better look him up. This kid is brilliant. He's only 15 and is going for 2700 before his 16th birthday.
I have seen him on Chess.com playing bullet against the fastest in the world, and this morning stumbled onto this Twitter post from "Chess24com" with BREAKING NEWS:
"Alireza Firouzja's chances of qualifying for the 2020 #GRENKEChess Classic suffered a big blow today when he was paired against an Israeli player and forfeited the game rather than face serious trouble back home in Iran."
Being 15 and a Grandmaster, and having high hopes that are realistic to one day be world champion, this is undoubtedly the best way to dash a youth's hopes and dreams, future, and confidence all in one.
An hour later a news update was posted:
This was indeed a dilemma, a dilemma that was resolved, but as you just saw in the above tweet, it was accompanied by some blowback.
Reading the replies and tweets, there is overwhelming support for this young star, and high hopes for the future:
And lastly, my apologies if I fudged any of the information, this was breaking news, and I am not an expert chess news reporter...yet!
