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Alireza Firouzja (picture from January 2020)
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Dean Mouhtaropoulos / Getty Images
With seven wins and two draws, the 18-year-old Frenchman Alireza Firouzja achieved one of the best results in chess history at the European Team Championships in Terme Catez, Slovenia.
Only Bobby Fischer in his 6-0 victories in the candidate competition victories in 1971 and Fabiano Caruana in Saint Louis in 2014 played arithmetically even stronger.
With a new rating of 2804, the 18-year-old is the youngest player to date to be listed above 2800.
The Elo points are the measure of the skill level of chess players.
In the world rankings, only world champion Magnus Carlsen from Norway is ahead of him with 2856.
Carlsen also hit the 2800 mark at the age of 18, but was a few months older than Firouzja at the time.
Firouzja, who split from the Iranian chess federation two years ago (read more about it here), appeared on the top board for France for the first time and led his new team to second place in the European team behind Ukraine and ahead of Poland.
A grandmaster at the age of 14
Firouzja is considered to be one of the greatest chess talents in the world.
At the age of just 14 he became a grandmaster, and at the age of 16 he was the second youngest player in history to reach 2700 Elo points in the world rankings.
Around 40 of the best players in the world are in this area.
ngo / dpa