fisayo123: I'm happy to say that other than the generic BIDFONDA stuff, I made the 1st real post on this Persian wonder's page.I remember 6 years ago, being astonished by the way he demolished his nation's best at a mere 12 (!!) years of age and that reminded me of a certain precocious American talent doing similar in his national championship in 1958.
Firouzja has the hallmark of all the great Champions of the past :
(1) The fearlessness. You will never see Firouzja surrender so meekly with the white pieces as Rapport did the other day against Nepomniachtchi when he had a chance to win the tournament.
Firouzja plays every tournament to win, and presses for the victory with both white and black.
(2) Consistency. Remarkably so. Some were disappointed by some of his results in the online rapid events, but those events don't matter in the grand scheme of things.
What matters most is OTB classical and Firouzja at 18 has shown the sort of consistency we haven't seen in a long time.
First it started with
(a) 2nd place in the World Rapid championship 2019 at age 16, improving on his 6th place finish at age 15 in the same event.
(b) a mid-table result at TATA steel 2020, his 1st supertournament at age 16. (which comes with the big caveat that he was actually LEADING the tournament after 9 rounds).
With TATA steel being a traditionally long tournament with 13 rounds, Firouzja would surely have won if it was a standard 9 round supertournament.
(c) He then goes on to win his 1st supertournament at the Prague Masters in 2020 at age 16. Some might question if this was really a higher tier supertournament, that depends on subjective definition. But consider that more than half of the field were super grandmasters and all of the field (with the exception of the extremely strong Swede, Grandelius) have been super gm's at some recent point.
(d) Finishing 2nd in the Norway chess supertournament 2020 edition. Tying Carlsen for 1st place; 6.5/10 in the classical section. Finishing ahead of prime Caruana.
(e) Finished shared 3rd, tied with Caruana and Esipenko in the TATA Steel supertournament 2021. Realistically having a chance to tie for 1st if not for the arbiter debacle against Wojtaszek.
Finished ahead of Carlsen.
(f) Just recently finished 2nd in the Norway chess supertournament 2021 edition. Again, tying Carlsen for 1st place; 6.5/10 in the classical section. Finishing ahead of prime Caruana.
No teenager, not even players like Caruana, MVL, So, Karjakin, Nepo, Giri and so on didn't show anything close to this, only Carlsen has in recent memory. And before him, Kasparov.
Kramnik might have had some impressive feats as a teen but i'm not even sure he showed such results.
Does that mean Firouzja will be the new Carlsen or one of the greatest of all time? Most likely no. But maybe. Afterall, not even the most optimistic Carlsen fan would have imagined Carlsen will become Carlsen of today.
Kibitzing
