The name Trump is synonymous with power, authority, influence and prestige. One very famous bearer of that last name is a billionaire business magnate, socialite and until recently, the President of the United States of America.
The Trump name that made waves on the chess scene is the name of a young Trump boy, Barron Trump.
Barron Trump is the 16-year old son of Donald and Melania Trump. Although rarely seen on camera, Barron is not your average 16 year old, his height is astonishing for a kid his age, he also made history by being the first boy to live in the White House since JFK Jr. The three other presidents before Donald Trump, Obama, Bush and Clinton all had girls. Barron is also fluent in Slovenian.
These are all admirable traits and achievements but the one that blew them all out of the water was the question that emerged in mid-October of 2018 after some social media accounts started circulating claims that the son of Donald J Trump, Barron Trump, had been awarded the title of a chess grandmaster. This brings us to the million-dollar question, ” Is Barron Trump a chess master?”.
Is Barron Trump A Chess Master?
This wasn’t the first time that the Trump family would have links to the chess world. It was once a widespread rumour that Donald Trump was a chess prodigy who studied under Robert James Fischer popularly known as Bobby Fischer. The pushers of this rumour claimed that the supposed “chess talent” of Donald Trump had largely been ignored by the mainstream media. However, research and reports have shown that the supposed bias shown by the media as claimed by the pushers of the “Trump-chess mastery” rumour was false as the links between Donald Trump and Bobby Fischer were found to be largely untrue.
The claims that raised the question “Is Barron Trump a chess master ” emanated from an article published on a website called THE DAILY CHRONICLE:
Everyone knows Barron Trump is the smartest President’s kid ever. Or should we call him First Son?
Either way, Barron has been awarded the prestigious title of Chess Grandmaster this week from the International Board of Chessmasters …
This should be no surprise considering who his father is. Donald Trump is one of the highest-ranked and most celebrated American chess players of all time.
In the 1970s and 80s, Donald Trump studied under the tutelage of players like Bobby Fischer. Eventually, he won hundreds of chess tournaments abroad before retiring at the ripe old age of 40.
However, the website is one that, even though they say they speak about facts, they also state in their privacy disclaimer that they post satirical content. Due to the nature of this news outlet, the story generated a buzz with lots of people scrambling to verify if it was correct or just a way of supposedly making fun of the Trump family.
The Truth Exposed!
Going through the World Chess Federation’s database that contains all the names of the 1600+ Chess Grandmasters in the world, you will find that the name Barron Trump isn’t listed among grandmasters.
Another fact that shows that Barron Trump isn’t a chess grandmaster asides from the fact that his name isn’t on the grandmaster list is that such a feat would have been groundbreaking because, first and foremost, Barron Trump was the son of the president of the USA and also, since the supposed conferment of the grandmaster title happened in 2017, Barron would have been 11 years then which would have made him the youngest chess grandmaster ever overtaking Abhimanyu Mishra who became a grandmaster at the age of 12. Such a feat would have had the International chess body, FIDE, stamp of approval. But sadly none of that happened.
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Therefore, we can safely say that the claims by THE DAILY CHRONICLE must have been satirical as research has shown that the answer to the question ” Is Barron Trump a chess master ” is simply “No”. He might be a smart kid who has had many firsts, but he is not a grandmaster.
