making the 12-year-old Argentinian “Messi of Chess” the youngest current grandmaster
Messi of Chessi, surely
Mess of Chess, perhaps
The LeBron of the Pawns
The Zidane of the Caro-Kann, the Mbappé of the Ruy-Lopez, the Ronaldo of the Guoco Pianissimo, the Maradona of the Vienna
deleted by creator
amazing achievement and he seems to be a funny little guy. Sometimes though, I think the barrier for the GM title should be raised somehow. Calling a 12 year old a “grandmaster” somehow doesn’t feel like that terminology should be used.
I think it’s hard to overstate how good at chess you need to be in order to become a grandmaster. Since 1950, FIDE has given out merely 2160 GM titles. You have to study a ridiculous amount of time and also be incredibly talented to reach that level of play. The fact that preteens can be grandmasters in chess probably has a lot to do with how early a human can start to learn it and how little physical element it has. In many sports for example, it would be impossible to compete at the highest level as a 12yr old, simply because your body is so far from being fully developed. Besides, it’s still very rare for Grandmasters to get their title this young. Many top players of today and the past got their GM title way later in life.
So I think Faustino deserves the honor. If you ever happened play against him, you should be scared just as much as with any other grandmaster :D.
Yeah I know, I didn’t want to downplay his achievement, of course! I am an amateur player who is good enough to understand how many things I don’t understand about chess, and any GM would whoop me blindfolded. I’m not 100% serious with my remark, I just wanted to say that it sounds verbally a little bit bizarre to call a 12 year old a “Grandmaster” of something. ;-)
And of course, you couldn’t change the requirements for the GM title anyway as it would be unfair for all the previous GMs. I guess that’s why we have the inofficial title of Super-GM.
He qualified for the title the same way every other player since ~1970 did, so there’s that