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Comment by tmalsburg2 | Hacker News Reader

Why is Alireza Firouzja being referred to as "Iranian teen"? He's an international top player. I doubt that Carlsen was referred to as "Norwegian teen" when he was ranking in the top 25.

p.s: As always: responses > downvotes.

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That was trivial to disprove

https://i.imgur.com/tfL5u0i.png

This is not a proof that he was commonly referred to as "Norwegian teen". The internet is vast and a proof of existence has little weight. But any data is better than not data, so +1 to you.

You didn't say anything about "commonly referred", you said:

> I doubt that Carlsen was referred to as "Norwegian teen"

Which he was, apparently at least 292 times

I think the OP's point may have been that Alireza had to flee Iran to play international chess. He's been living in France for the last 7 years afaik.

Nakamura is described as an American player, but he lives in Napoli. Levon Aronian is Armenian, but he lives in Berlin. Players often don't live in the country they represent.

But Alireza does not represent Iran, period. The other players are playing for their respective countries.

Btw, I think you are mistaken about Levon Aronian. See recent tragedy with his wife. Occurred in Armenia. He might be living in Berlin part time as its closer to all the action.

Aronian at least used to live mainly in Berlin, which is where his family now lives, I think. I don't know where he spends more time now.

“Iranian teen” makes it a better headline, anonymizing him makes it more of an out-of-nowhere sports story. Stop looking for racism in everything, you’re looking to stir something up when there’s nothing there. (And I see you’ve edited your comment to remove the “this is racist” rant)

out-of-nowhere sports story

I’m more annoyed by the headline’s implication that Carlsen would find this defeat shocking. He wouldn’t. Magnus and Alireza have been acquainted for a few years now. They’ve played many times. Carlsen is fully aware of how strong his opponent is.

He might have been fazed for sure. Carlsen is famously grumpy about losing. And there's a big difference between losing a single game, and losing a match consisting of several games. It's much more difficult to dismiss the latter as a fluke.

Now obviously this wasn't a fully serious match format, but then again Carlsen prides himself on his dominance under short time controls.

after all, it was in rapid playoffs that he defended his world champion crown against both Karjakin and Caruana. It was only once it came to that when he would simply blow them out of the water.

Plus they directly contradict themselves in the story

> Before the clash, the world no.1 player didn't underestimate Firouzja, calling him "by far my biggest challenge."

It it not racist of course, just dumb.

You're getting downvoted because your doubts are easily falsified by a search.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/norwegian-teen-top...

Because "person beats Magnus Carlsen" isn't nearly as interesting a headline as "really young person beats Magnus Carlsen" - the latter gives us a sense that we should be surprised. I think you're seeing racism where there is none.

Nothing wrong with pointing out that he's young. But he still has a name, and you've got to wonder about the significance of him being Iranian.

Chess, like olympic sports, is weirdly nationalistic and a source of national pride. I'm not much of a history expert, but I suspect that was largely caused by the soviet union deciding that they would be the best at it.

As for not using his name, try and write the headline both mentioning his name, and his age. It's just clunky.

If anything it's nice to see some good press for Iran on an American site. I fully expect him to be retconned as "French teen" or "American teen" or whatever else once he gets his new federation.

One reason to do that is to make it accessible for your reader. They hopefully have heard of Iran, they can "understand" the headline. Even for people who know of the situation sometimes players get a preceding nationality because then you don't need to remember the names to follow along with who is who.

Agreed 100%. If you're the editor thinking up this headline, you've got a choice between a) crediting established chess powerhouse Firouzja with a well-deserved victory over Magnus; or b) downplaying his accomplishments in order to make it seem like the reigning champion lost to a random high schooler.

It also seems relevant that he is Iranian as he has notably decided not to play under the Iranian flag. Reading the article, multiple paragraphs are spent discussing this aspect of the story.

"Established chess powerhouse" - not in the eyes of your average reader who doesn't follow world chess events, and most likely wouldn't be able to name any active chess player, with the possible exception of Carlsen himself.

It's CNN, not ChessBase. They have no reason to assume any chess-related who-is-who knowledge on the reader's part.

CNN's average reader couldn't pick Magnus Carlsen out of a police lineup. At that point you either try grasping at whatever semblance of credibility you have: "Chess prodigy finally defeats Magnus Carlsen in a blitz tournament", or go for those allegedly profitable clicks and title the article "Iranian teen SHOCKS Magnus Carlsen".

It's all trash. The headline is insulting to Magnus. It's insulting to Firouzja. It's insulting to the readers.

That's a trope of headlines which has been around for decades. Are we perhaps running into a cross-cultural issue here?

The younger someone doing something noteworthy is, the more the press (at least in North America) will headline their age.

Here's Orson Welles at age 10: https://twitter.com/JFrankensteiner/status/11919269504508805...

How about: "Teen flees Iran to defeat Magnus Carlsen"

Not entirely true, but that he had to leave Iran to pursue his chess career is interesting.

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