Case in point: Last year, 18-year-old Andrey Esipenko beat Carlsen in classical time controls. It was Carlsen's first classical loss against a teenager in 10 years, and his first loss to a sub-2700 player in 5 years. It was also just 3 months after Carlsen's record-breaking streak of 125 classical games with no losses came to an end.
There was a big buzz in the chess world at the time, but it was hardly front-page material for mainstream media.
That said, of course, newsworthiness is not a competition - so congrats to both youngsters for their awesome achievements. The upcoming chess generation is looking promising! (I expect we'll see similar headlines for Alireza Firouzja someday soon)
There was a big buzz in the chess world at the time, but it was hardly front-page material for mainstream media.
That said, of course, newsworthiness is not a competition - so congrats to both youngsters for their awesome achievements. The upcoming chess generation is looking promising! (I expect we'll see similar headlines for Alireza Firouzja someday soon)