Alireza Firouzja was banned for cheating on Chess.com #TweetOftheDay
19-year-old chess prodigy Alireza Firouzja scored his first Candidates victory yesterday after winning an exciting game against Richard Rapport. In the post-game interview, Alireza commented on three brilliant moves from the game joking with chess.com’s Chief Chess Officer Daniel Rensch: “I hope I don’t get banned again“. Rensch then explained Alireza got banned for cheating on chess.com when he was 11 years old. After additional manual checks, chess.com realized that it was a super-talented kid playing from the account. See the video below.
Some of the Firouzja’s fans thought it was a funny story, while the others wondered how many other Alirezas were banned from the chess.com’s system and therefore got discouraged from pulsing their talent.
Alireza Firouzja was considered to be one of the favorites to win the 2022 Candidates Tournament after his remarkable achievements in the elite chess tournaments. With a peak rating of 2804, Firouzja was the youngest chess player ever to cross 2800, beating the previous record set by Magnus Carlsen and Carlsen was commenting he would play the match for the World Champion only if Firouzja wins the Candidates. Speaking about Carlsen’s statement, Firouzja said it didn’t add any extra pressure on him, and that he is satisfied with what he showed in the tournament so far: “If you look at my games it’s really me that is playing the games. It’s really my style and I don’t feel any pressure I think“. See the video below.
Featured photo: FIDE/Stev Bonhage