IMHussain Besou

Hussain Besou was born in Riyadh in 2011 to Syrian parents and moved to Germany with his family in 2016. He began playing at Lippstadt's chess club after its volunteers introduced chess to children in refugee accommodation. Artur Yusupov coached him from 2018 to 2021, and Matthias Krallmann later became his trainer. Besou won Germany's under-12 championship at nine and took bronze in the world under-12 championship in 2022. In April 2023, aged eleven, he became the youngest player to represent Germany's senior national team when he appeared in the Mitropa Cup.