Young players from 40 countries to take part in Festival «Rudaga – Kaissa 2021»
FIDE endorsed tournament will be held in Jurmala, Latvia from July 23 – August 01. Young chess players from about 40 countries will participate in the Rudaga – Kaissa 2021 Children and Youth Chess Festival, which will be held in the Latvian resort city of Jurmala with the support of the International Chess Federation (FIDE). The pre-competition press conference with the organizers was held yesterday on International Chess Day. The festival will take place for the 13th time and will bring together chess players under the age of 20, representing 40 countries, including Latvia, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Ghana, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. Tournaments will be held both over-the-board and online. “We are constantly looking for interesting ideas all over the world and we see Latvia is showing passion and creativity in hosting interesting events, primarily for children and young people. We also hope that at some point Latvia will be hosting a major tournament for professional players. In 2019 the Grand Prix leg was held in Riga, and a children’s championship supported by FIDE was conducted as its side event. So, the tradition is already emerging, and we hope that it will expand in the future,” – said FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich. According to him, FIDE’s support for children and youth chess tournaments is the basis for the further development of the sport. “We are thinking about future generations all the time. Involving new generations in chess has a huge potential. Moreover, there are countries where this is already a tradition – Russia, the Baltic countries, European and Asian countries, India, the USA, China, but in many parts of the world we still have a lot of work to do,” he added. Tournament director Inessa Testelecs noted that the upcoming chess festival will include a large side-events program. “We will have chess master classes and simultaneous games with chess stars and grandmasters. It will be a great honor for children to play against famous opponents whose chess career was long and impressive,” she said. In addition to standard prizes – commemorative cups, diplomas, medals and memorable gifts – the winner of the over-the-board tournament will receive accreditation for the World Chess Olympiad 2022, an entrance ticket for the Opening Ceremony and accommodation for two nights in the official hotel of the Olympiad, while top players of the online event will be awarded free online group lectures with Antoaneta Stefanova, Women’s World Champion (2004-2006) and Ruslan Ponomariov, FIDE World Champion (FIDE World Chess Championship 2002).
Round 03 tiebreaks: Giri and Mamedyarov eliminated!
The new generation creates havoc in the tiebreaks. Tuesday, July 20th, 2021 – Great action this afternoon in the tiebreak session of the third round. Seventeen encounters had to be decided today (13 in the open group and 4 in the women’s group), in order to pair the players for the fourth round, scheduled for Thursday. You can see that the players are starting to get tired and that tomorrow’s rest day will be hugely appreciated by the players that have advanced today. Unexpectedly, most of them decided their tie-break in the first two 25/10 games. Vladislav Artemiev, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Praggnanandhaa R, Pavel Ponkratov were all able to defeat their opponents by a clear 2-0 score, while Etienne Bacrot, Sam Shankland, Peter Svidler (pictured below) and Pouya Idani advanced to the fourth round with a 1.5-0.5 result. Nonetheless, two of the favourites to win the tournament were eliminated in the tiebreaks this afternoon. World’s number six Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan, 2782) was unable to straighten out the 1-1 tie in the classical games and was eventually knocked out of the cup by Haik M. Martirosyan, former under-16 world champion, and currently Armenia’s number seven player (2632). In the first game, Mamedyarov, playing with White, sacrificed a pawn out of the opening for some compensation but Martirosyan defended well and outplayed his opponent in the endgame. Not wanting to play for a draw in the second game with White, Martirosyan went all-out for a win against Mamedyarov’s very dubious opening set-up. In a highly complex position, his superb move 35.Kf2! blocking the f-pawn and preparing an assault on Black’s king was enough for Black to realise that he had to exchange pieces and simplify to an easily drawn rook ending. We caught up with Martirosyan for a brief interview in which he went over the match. The other major upset of the afternoon was the elimination of Anish Giri (2776), playing for the Netherlands. Both of the classical games against his opponent, seventeen-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov, ended in a draw and things seemed to be safe for the world’s number eight player. However, the Uzbekistan 2634 prodigy played really well in the two 25/10 tiebreak games, first defeating Giri in a tricky rook + knight ending and then holding an extremely difficult position in the second game, until Giri over-pressed an equal ending and eventually lost. Another young player that qualified for the fourth round is 21-years-old USA grand master Jeffrey Xiong (2709), currently, number 33 in the world, who took down Sweden’s number one player Nils Grandelius (2661) after a really tough match that went back and forth. Jeffrey was kind enough to pop into the press center and give us his thoughts on the games. Two matches went full throttle to the end. Santosh Gujrathi Vidit (2726) defeated his teammate Baskaran Adhiban in the second blitz game for an overall score of 4.5-3.5, giving you an idea of the resilient nature of “The Beast”. In his post-game interview, Vidit went over the key moments of the match. The only game that went the full distance to the “Armageddon” was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2749) against David Paravyan (2625), who gave the Frenchman the match of his life. After many missed opportunities, in addition to an incorrect 3-fold position draw claim in the second blitz game, Maxime played a great attacking “sudden-death” game, winning by a total score of 5-4, and will now face India’s prodigy Praggnanandhaa in the next round. Check out an interview with the winner here. There were four tie-breaks in the women’s group and the only one that ended in the first two 25/10 games was the match between Nana Dzagnidze (rated 2523) and Carissa Yip (2430) which fell to the side of the experienced Georgian player. Dzagnidze won her second classical game on-demand and forced the tie-break in which she clearly outplayed her young opponent, winning the two games. Dzagnidze offered her thoughts on the match-up with her young opponent in a brief interview. The other three qualifiers were twenty-year-old Polina Shuvalova (2489) who defeated her even younger teammate Leya Garifullina (2390) by 3.5-2.5 in a very close match. Polina gave the thoughts on the match in her postgame interview. Also advancing to the fourth round was 17-years-old Bibisara Assaubayeva (2389) who defeated the very experienced Georgian grandmaster Bela Khotenashvili (2471) by 4-2. Finally, Mariya Muzychuk (2550) (pictured below) was able to join her sister in the fourth round after defeating her teammate from the Ukraine Olympic team Anna Ushenina (2429) by 4.5-3.5 in the by far most exciting women’s tie-break this afternoon. The players (and the staff!) will all enjoy a well-deserved rest day to replenish their strength, maybe with a cable-car mountain visit or a hike in the nearby woods, or just a short walk around the lovely town. Round 4 will start on Thursday 22nd at 3 pm sharp, with a field that has been drastically whittled down to 48 players, 32 in the open group and 16 in the women’s cup. Pairings of the fourth round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating, will qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, in addition to winning the 110.000 USD first prize (80.000 USD for the runner-up). Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE), Chess Federation of Russia, Russian Ministry of Sports, and Government of Krasnodar Krai. Partners: Gazprom – general partner Nornickel – general partner PhosAgro – general partner Chessable – event’s partner Aeroflot – CFR’s partner Educational centre “Sirius”
FIDE and NBC Sports announce chess partnership for the World Championship Match 2021
Each of Night of Event Followed by 30-Minute Next-Day Highlight Show on NBCSN NBCSN To Present More Than 20 Hours of Chess Coverage for Duration of Match The International Chess Federation is pleased to announce a new media partnership for the FIDE World Championship Match 2021 with NBC Sports, which will present coverage of each game on NBCSN. Organized by the International Chess Federation (FIDE), in partnership with EXPO-2020 in Dubai, the event will see the reigning world champion, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, defend his title in a 14-game matchup against his Challenger, Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia. The two players will compete for a prize fund of EUR 2 million (USD 2,360,000). Initially planned for 2020, and postponed due to the pandemic, this clash between the two best chess Grandmasters in the world will finally take place between 26 November and 16 December 2021. Starting on 27 November, 2021, the daily 30-minute shows on NBCSN from the FIDE World Championship Match 2021 will bring the highlights of each game not only to the hardcore chess fans but to the much wider and highly-engaged community of sports lovers throughout the United States. Each highlight show will be replayed the day after it premieres, totaling one hour of chess content every night, starting on 28 November and for the remaining duration of the match. The videos will convey the emotions, stories, and expert opinions, including commentary by Maurice Ashley, who will focus on making chess accessible for all levels of viewers. Well-known as a commentator for high-profile chess events, Ashley made history in 1999 when he became the first African-American ever to be awarded the title of chess Grandmaster. “It’s exciting to be a part of the premier event in all of chess, one that will be followed by millions of passionate chess fans eager to see who will emerge victorious. Having NBC Sports on board is a brilliant development that will further help to push chess into the limelight where it certainly belongs”, said Ashley. Leveraging the massive surge in popularity that chess has experienced during 2020 and the first half of 2021, connected to the global lockdowns and the stunning success of ‘The Queen’s Gambit’, the media partnership between FIDE and NBC Sports will allow huge exposure to one of the most prestigious sport competitions in the World. The game of chess attracts a wide and diverse audience represented by traditional chess fans, but also a new generation of chess enthusiasts who, not only play, but also watch chess videos and streams as a way to learn, improve, or simply enjoy the games of the Grandmasters. “FIDE is happy and proud to partner with NBC for this groundbreaking project”, said Emil Sutovsky, FIDE’s Director General. For nearly a month chess will become a regular guest in millions of American homes. We are looking forward to delivering a show that would appeal to chess aficionados and those new to our beautiful game. They say – chess is gaining momentum – our aim is to take public interest in chess to an entirely new level, when we could speak of a global regular audience and sustainable growth. There is no better way to start such an ambitious project, than to have the major event of chess calendar, the World Championship Match on the major US network for three weeks running. Tune in!” NBC Sports serves sports fans 24/7 with premier live events, insightful studio shows, and compelling original programming. Now, the World Chess Championship, one of the oldest traditions in the world of sports, will be a part of NBC Sports’ history. “We look forward to presenting the world’s finest chess in fast-paced coverage throughout the 14-day match,” said Nick Casanova, NBC Sports.” ABOUT NBC SPORTS GROUP NBC Sports Group serves sports fans 24/7 with premier live events, insightful studio shows, and compelling original programming. The sports media company consists of NBC Sports, NBC Olympics, NBCSN, Golf Channel, Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA, NBC Sports Regional Networks, NBC Sports Audio Network and NBC Sports Digital, which includes NBCSsports.com, NBCOlympics.com, GolfChannel.com, the digital assets of the NBC Sports Regional Networks, NBC Sports EDGE, the NBC Sports Talk franchise, multiple apps, and two transactional sports businesses, GolfNow and SportsEngine, and two direct-to-consumer products – NBC Sports Gold and GolfPass. NBC Sports Group possesses an unparalleled collection of media rights agreements, partnering with some of the most prestigious sports properties in the world: the International Olympic Committee and United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, the NFL, NASCAR, INDYCAR, PGA TOUR, The R&A, PGA of America, USGA, Churchill Downs, Premier League, Tour de France, French Open, and many more. More information: https://nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com/about/
Round 03 Game 02: Fabiano Caruana eliminated from the World Cup
17 third-round matches go to tie-beaks tomorrow Monday, July 19th, 2021 – Rinat Jumabayev, Kazakhstan’s top player, rated 2637, advanced to the fourth round of the World Cup this afternoon by eliminating World’s number 2 player Fabiano Caruana. The first game of the two ended yesterday in a solid draw and it seemed logical that Caruana would be pressing today with the white pieces. In a complex variation of the Carlsbad Queen’s Gambit, Caruana played for a kingside attack with the thematic, albeit risky, 17.g4 push. He then sacrificed an exchange for some piece play compensation, although the computer is not impressed at all. But over the board Jumabaev wasn’t able to defend with precision, and soon he had to improvise with a queen sacrifice to keep the balance. The game was probably equal but very tricky and just one mistake (41.Qc4?) was enough for Black to win a piece tactically and seal the deal. Jumabaev kindly returned to the venue after his mandatory testing to tell us about the game and how he was feeling after defeating such a brilliant player. Check out an interview with the winner here. All this emotion occurred at the end of the round, but before that many other things had happened in the Galaxy Centre. The first qualifier of the afternoon was Daniil Dubov, who advanced to Round 4 after defeating Vladimir Malakhov by a clear 1.5-0.5 score. Although today’s game was quite solid, the key game was yesterday (Game 1) when Dubov played a very enterprising e5-e6 pawn thrust, taking the game into dark territory, from which he emerged victorious. His opponent in the 1/16 finals will be Andrey Esipenko in an all-Russian bout. In his post-game interview, Dubov took us through both games and told us what he was planning to do his two free days. Also qualifying at a speedy pace this afternoon was 2015 World Cup winner, Sergey Karjakin (Russia). His opponent Grigoriy Oparin had to win today on-demand with Black after losing an equal ending in the first game. However, defeating the former world champion contender with Black is not an easy task, and Oparin had to concede the draw after 38 moves. Karjakin will face the winner of tomorrow’s tiebreak between Boris Gelfand Vladislav Artemiev. He gave us his thoughts on the game in a short interview. Meanwhile, World Champion Magnus Carlsen was grinding out his second win against his team-mate Aryan Tari in an opposite-color bishop ending with a rook each. Maybe Tari had some better defensive chances at some point but Magnus’ technique proved to be too much for him and he had to resign on move 67. In his post-game interview, Magnus explained his thoughts on the two games of this round and how important it is for him to play classical games to get training for the World Championship. The following matches ended in a 1-1 tie and will be decided tomorrow, in what will be an absolutely tremendously exciting tie-break session in the Galaxy Centre: Matlakov – WojtaszekBacrot – AminTomashevsky – IdaniVidit – AdhibanGrandelius – XiongAbdusattorov – GiriMartirosyan – MamedyarovParavyan – Vachier-LagravePraggnanandhaa – KrasenkowArtemiev – GelfandCheparinov – SvidlerShankland – AreshchenkoPonkratov – Vakhidov In the ever-exciting women’s group, things are getting very interesting by the day. Top seeds Aleksandra Goryachkina, Kateryna Lagno (check out an interview with her) and Anna Muzychuk all drew their second game today and advance with ease to the next round while former World Champion Zhongyi Tan eliminated her opponent Marie Sebag (France) by a clear 2-0, the same result as Nino Batsiashvili who also advanced to the next round with a conclusive 2-0 score. Several other qualifiers had to win today on-demand to avoid going through tomorrow’s tiebreaks and therefore enjoy an extra rest day before the fourth round. These players include Antoaneta Stefanova, Elizabeth Paehtz, Sarasadat Khademalsharieh and Dinara Saduakassova Dinara joined us at the press center to talk us through her games and her plans for the next two rest days. Four matches were unable to provide a winner so they will be fought out tomorrow, in what will be an absolutely tremendously exciting tie-break session in the Galaxy Centre. Yip – DzagnidzeShuvalova – GarifullinaUshenina – Muzychuk, MKhotenashvili – Assaubayeva Pairings of the tiebreaks of the third round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating, will qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, in addition to winning the 110.000 USD first prize (80.000 USD for the runner-up). Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE), Chess Federation of Russia, Russian Ministry of Sports, and Government of Krasnodar Krai. Partners: Gazprom – general partner Nornickel – general partner PhosAgro – general partner Chessable – event’s partner Aeroflot – CFR’s partner Educational centre “Sirius”
The Life & Games of Vasily Smyslov wins the Averbakh/Boleslavsky Award
The Yuri Averbakh/Isaac Boleslavsky Award for best book published in 2020 goes to “The Life & Games of Vasily Smyslov (The Early Years: 1921-1948)”, written by Andrey Terekhov, and published by Russell Enterprises. The runners up were “Think Like a Machine”, by Noam Manella and Zeev Zohar (published by Quality Chess), and “Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships: Volume I (1920-1937)”, written by Sergey Voronkov, and published by Elk and Ruby. About the winner St. Petersburg native Andrey Terekhov is a FIDE Master, an ICCF International Master (correspondence chess) and holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science. His best results at the board were victories in the 2008 Munich Open and the 2012 Nabokov Memorial. He currently resides in Singapore. This is his first book for Russell Enterprises. Vasily Smyslov, the seventh world champion, had a long and illustrious chess career. He played close to 3,000 tournament games over seven decades, from the time of Lasker and Capablanca to the days of Anand and Carlsen. From 1948 to 1958, Smyslov participated in four world championships, becoming world champion in 1957. Smyslov continued playing at the highest level for many years and made a stunning comeback in the early 1980s, making it to the finals of the candidates’ cycle. Only the indomitable energy of 20-year-old Garry Kasparov stopped Smyslov from qualifying for another world championship match at the ripe old age of 63! In this first volume of a multi-volume set, Russian FIDE master Andrey Terekhov traces the development of young Vasily from his formative years and becoming the youngest grandmaster in the Soviet Union to finishing second in the world championship match tournament. With access to rare Soviet-era archival material and invaluable family archives, the author complements his account of Smyslov’s growth into an elite player with dozens of fascinating photographs, many never seen before, as well as 49 deeply annotated games. German grandmaster Karsten Müller’s special look at Smyslov’s endgames rounds out this fascinating first volume. About the runner ups “Think Like a Machine” With the ascent of computer technology, humans have a chance to develop their thinking process based on hard evidence. Think Like a Machine explores human limitations and proposes new avenues for human thinking, inspired by computer engines. In positions taken almost exclusively from modern tournament play, the authors present jaw-dropping continuations which humans struggle to find, not due to lower human computing power, due to conceptual and perceptual limitations. In this book these “crazy” moves are analysed and categorised. If you want to expand your chess imagination, understanding and intuition, Think Like a Machine is the book is for you. Think Like A Machine is the second chess book co-written by Noam Manella and Zeev Zohar. Manella is a digital and Social Networks Researcher; Zohar is an accountant and businessman. Their previous book, Play Unconventional Chess and Win, was a highlight in chess publishing in 2014. “Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships: Volume I (1920-1937)” In his three-volume treatise, leading Russian chess historian Sergey Voronkov vividly brings to life the long-forgotten history of the Soviet championships held in 1920-1953. Volume I covers the first 10 championships from 1920-1937, as well as the title match between Botvinnik and Levenfish. The key contestants also include world champion Alekhine and challenger Bogoljubov, lesser-known Soviet champions Romanovsky, Bogatyrchuk, Verlinsky, and Rabinovich, and names that today will be unfamiliar yet were big stars at the time: Riumin, Alatortsev, Makogonov, Rauzer, Ragozin, Chekhover, and many others.
International Chess Day celebrated on July 20
“Dear chess friends, This Tuesday, July 20th, we will celebrate International Chess Day. As you probably know, this date also marks FIDE’s 97th anniversary. Last year, many of you joined us when we made an appeal to the members of our chess community and asked you to teach someone how to play chess to mark this day. This campaign turned into a truly global celebration of chess. Many people and institutions from “outside” the chess world echoed the initiative, and we managed to attract more people to our sport. This resulted in many thousands of new players who joined our ranks. Our family grew bigger, and that is always good news. In view of this success, we would like to repeat this campaign, and probably turn it into a yearly tradition from now on. Chess became one of the hottest trends in 2020, and millions of people are curious and eager to learn chess. Let’s give them a hand! You will find detailed instructions below. I would kindly ask you to distribute this information among your friends, members of your chess club or federation, associates and sponsors, and representatives of the media in your respective countries. Arkady DvorkovichFIDE President” WHO? Preferably a kid (it would be easier, and more rewarding for you both!), but it can also be a grown-up. Learning chess has beneficial effects, at any age! Choose someone close to you. You can change somebody’s life by teaching him/her a beautiful game, but you will also be spending some quality time and creating or reinforcing a special bond with that person. If your children already play, maybe you can invite your nephew or your son’s best friend. Maybe you can finally teach your boyfriend how to play, or your high-school best mate. Or you could propose this as an after-work activity with your colleagues at the office. WHEN? July 20th falls on a Tuesday, so the plan is that we make some preliminary posts on Monday announcing our plans, and then take social media by storm during Tuesday. However, we have the whole week to actually teach someone how to play, culminating with next weekend, July 24-25. Can we start the next week with one million new chess players? We believe so. HOW? Some of you might be seasoned chess teachers, but many others have never taught the basics chess to absolute beginners. During the days leading to the weekend, try to gather some materials, watch some tutorials, and do some reading. From FIDE, we will stimulate the exchange of information and will share the most interesting ones, in different languages. Let’s help each other with the preparations. SOCIAL MEDIA Last year, on International Chess Day, 13,633 tweets from 2,829 different contributors used the hashtag #Internationalchessday. That means we reached an audience of more than 122 million people and 202 million potential impacts – and that’s on Twitter alone! The campaign was also massively followed across other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, and International Chess Day became a trending topic in several countries. The trend was so strong that many global brands, institutions, and celebrities, joined the initiative. Let’s try to reach even higher numbers this year! You can start using the hashtag #Internationalchessday in your social media posts during the weekend leading to July 20th. But the very important day is Monday: please make sure to make at least one or two posts with the official hashtag, if possible early in the morning. That will ensure that other users will follow. If you have any doubts or suggestions, or you think you can contribute to this campaign in some other way, please don’t hesitate to contact us: David Lladadavid.llada@fide.com+ 34 623 021 120
Round 03 Game 01: Magnus Carlsen on track to win
Fabiano Caruana returns to the competition after his win by forfeit Sunday, July 18th, 2021 – With the player field cut by more than a half, the venue is starting to look rather big in relation to the number of boards. The “weakest” players in the pairings tree are 2550+ and nearly all of the top dogs are still in contention. Wherever you look, 2650-2700+ players are walking around, in full concentration. An absolute pleasure to enjoy the presence of such fabulous players. The World Champion Magnus Carlsen is taking things very seriously: it’s clear that he has come here to win. The World Cup is one of the few events that Carlsen doesn’t yet have in his trophy case. This afternoon he made the first step to qualify for the fourth round by defeating his teammate Aryan Tari with the white pieces. Magnus Carlsen – Aryan Tari Tari was actually doing very well but low on time Aryan blundered 38…Bd4? 39.Rb5 a4? 40.Ne7+ and he had to resign because he was either losing a piece or on the bad side of an Anastasia mate (with Rh5). Instead of 38…Bd4, Tari could have played 38…a4 and although he is a pawn down, he might be able to hold the double rook ending. Everyone was happy to see Fabiano Caruana back on the stage after his win by forfeit in the second round. Although he was only able to get a draw (with Black against Rinat Jumabayev) he was relatively content with the result, having the White pieces tomorrow. Fabiano was kind enough to pop in for a brief interview in which he explained his thoughts on the game and confirmed that he was feeling great. Top-ten player Alexander Grischuk also made a huge step to qualify for the next round by defeating Argentina’s number one Alan Pichot with White. The intermediate move 17.Bf4! may have escaped Pichot’s attention but it left him in a very delicate position. Although Grischuk’s king had to make the walk to f3 he had everything under control and soon created a mating net which proved definitive. The top Russian player in the field explained his thoughts in a brief post-game interview. The all-Indian encounter between Santosh Vidit and Baskaran Adhiban also proved to be a fighting game. Adhiban was doing well in a King’s Indian until he blundered a pawn with 19…e4, maybe due to an oversight. Vidit played it safe and actively relocated his pieces, netting a second pawn and went on to win. Adhiban will have to go all-out tomorrow for a win but, as Vidit was quick to say in the postgame interview, “Adhiban goes all-out no matter the score”. Other important results this afternoon were: Dubov-Malakhov (1-0), Van Foreest-Piorun (0-1), Oparin-Karjakin (0-1), Vitiugov-Shirov (1-0) and the main surprise result Martirosyan-Mamedyarov (1-0) (the winner is pictured below) In the women’s group, the main favourite Aleksandra Goryachkina (pictured below) is still on 100% having defeated Olga Badelka with White. Today she played a solid Catalan opening, achieving a small positional plus after the opening. Later in the game she opened the a-file and penetrated into her opponent’s position with her heavy pieces, winning a pawn and converting in the endgame. Joining her on 100% is the older of the two very strong Muzychuk sisters, Anna. Today’s win over Pauline Guichard – with Black – gives her very good chances to qualify for the fourth round. She gave her thoughts on the game in a brief post-game interview. Other important results this afternoon include Kashlinskaya-Galliamova (1-0), Dzagnidze-Yip (0-1), Cramling-Kosteniuk (0-1), Gunina-Harika (1-0), Tan-Sebag (1-0) and Munguntuul-Lagno (0-1). All these players have the advantage going into the second game of the third round. Their opponents will have to win on-demand tomorrow in the Galaxy Centre in Sochi to force the tie-breaks. The general partner of the tournament Nornickel established a special prize – Platinum Crown – for the best games of Rounds 2, 3 and 4 at the FIDE World Cup and Women’s World Cup. Michal Krasenkow and Bibisara Assaubayeva were awarded Platinum Crown for the best game of Round 2. The games were selected by the jury – commentators Sergey Shipov, Evgenij Miroshnichenko, tournament director Mark Glukhovsky, and international arbiter Boris Postovsky. 57-year old Polish GM Michal Krasenkow beat Candidates tournament participant Kirill Alekseenko in a spectacular style. In the position on the diagram (see diagram below), he went for a rook sacrifice – 29.Rxh6! – eventually laying his hands on the Black king. 17-year-old Bibisara Assaubayeva developed great dynamics in the middlegame, based on careful calculation, crushing her compatriot and leader of Kazakhstani women’s list Zhansaya Abdumalik. Michal Krasenkow – Kirill Alekseenko Pairings of the second game of the third round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating, will qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, in addition to winning the 110.000 USD first prize (80.000 USD for the runner-up). Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE), Chess Federation of Russia, Russian Ministry of Sports, and Government of Krasnodar Krai. Partners: Gazprom – general partner Nornickel – general partner PhosAgro – general partner Chessable – event’s partner Aeroflot – CFR’s partner Educational centre “Sirius”
Round 02 tiebreaks: Chess Armageddon in Sochi
Dominguez, Firouzja and Maghsoodloo eliminated in the tiebreaks Most of the round two matches were decided yesterday in the classical games. Nonetheless, 60 players (44 in the open section and 16 in the women’s section) returned to the playing hall of the Galaxy Centre to fight it out over the board for a spot in the third round of the World Cup. The tiebreaks in this event are a nerve-racking issue, only suitable for the fittest players. Two rapid games – 25 minutes base time + 10 seconds increment – to start off with, followed by two more rapid games (10/10) and finally two blitz 5/3 games if there is no winner. The “Armageddon” decisive game format is left for the end: 5 minutes vs 4 on the clock but the draw favours the player who chooses Black. Two of the thirty matches ended up in the “sudden death” blitz match, one of the most exciting chess-related topics that has been seen in quite a while. In the open group, Bulgarian GM Ivan Cheparinov (2667) defeated German GM Rasmus Svane (2615) in the last game with the Black pieces, with both players blitzing out their last moves to avoid losing on time. The final 5-4 score (9 games!) just gives us an idea of what might come further down the line. In the women’s group, Spanish WGM Ana Matnadze (2421) lost a heart-breaking “Armageddon” blitz game against WGM Olga Badelka (2418) from Belarus, losing on time in a winning position and only two seconds left for her opponent. The total score of this match was also 5-4. After taking a well-deserved break, Ana found time to graciously give her thoughts in the post-game interview (in Spanish). However, the most amazing surprise of the round was GM Alireza Firouzja’s (2759) loss to 16-year-old GM Javokhir Sindarov (2558), from Uzbekistan. Four solid draws in the classical and 25-minute rapid games were followed by a very lively King’s Indian defence, in which Sindarov played a very nice positional pawn sacrifice with 22…f3! Followed by …Nh5-f4, taking over the initiative and eventually winning the decisive game. Representing France for the first time, the elimination of Firouzja is a huge blow for his fans from all over the world. The other big surprise was the early departure of former Cuban (now USA) GM Lenier Dominguez Perez (2758), rated number 13 in the world’s best player list. But rapid matches can go either way, and it was GM Jakhongir Vakhidov (2534, Uzbekistan) (pictured below) who will now face Pavel Ponkratov in the third round. The key moment of the first rapid game occurred on move twenty when Lenier, in a difficult position, tried to defend his knight with 20…Rd5 (instead 20…Nc6 gives up the exchange for a pawn but there is still a game). After 21.e4 Rb5 maybe Dominguez missed 22.a4! in his previous calculations, and he had to give up material in worse conditions. In a must-win situation, he over-pressed in his next game and Vakhidov ended the rapid match with a clear 2-0. However, the afternoon was going to bring us even more mishaps. Another huge upset was the defeat of Iran’s best player, GM Parham Maghsoodloo (2698) against 55-year old GM Kiril Georgiev (2594), rated more than 100 points behind. Both of the classic games ended in solid draws, which theoretically might have favoured Maghsoodloo, who won the León rapid two years ago. However, it was the veteran player who took down the first rapid game. Parham, with White, went for an interesting sacrifice with 27.Nxg7 but Georgiev defended tenaciously and the knight was eventually trapped. All tomorrow’s third-round matchups are very interesting but our suggestion is to keep an eye on the games between Norway’s one and two Magnus Carlsen and Aryan Tari, Daniil Dubov against Vladimir Malakhov (both from Russia) and the all-Indian match between Santosh Gujrathi Vidit and Baskaran Adhiban. One of the most exciting matches of the second round in the women’s group was the 4-game encounter between seventeen-year-old IM Carissa Yip (2430) from the USA, against the strong Ukrainian WGM Nataliya Buksa (2413). After tying 1-1 in the classical games, Carissa got the best of her opponent in the first rapid game. Even so, she had to bring all her defensive skills to play in the second rapid game, in which Buksa threw all her pieces against Yip’s king in an open Sicilian. Although White had enjoyed a much better position in the opening, the key moment was the blunder 32.e5? (instead, 32.Rxc8 Rxc8 33.Qd1 and the position is more or less equal) after which Yip won a piece with 32…Qxb5 and converted in good fashion. Yip will face experienced Georgian GM Nana Dzagnidze (2523) in the third round. Carissa shared her thoughts with us after the game in a brief interview. Top German female player WGM Elisabeth Paehtz (2466) (pictured below) also qualified for the third round, albeit not without difficulty. She had to resort to winning the blitz games against her opponent, Bulgaria WGM Nurgyul Salimova (2395), who proved to be very resourceful during the whole match. Even though she was visibly exhausted after the grueling match, Paehtz kindly gave us her thoughts on her performance. Several third-round encounters will prove to be tremendously exciting. Our bet would be to follow the all-Russian matchups between Alina Kashlinskaya and Alisa Galliamova – they have played some really amazing games recently -, and young guns Polina Shuvalova and Leya Garifullina. The other exciting match might be the Ukrainian battle between former World Champion Anna Ushenina and Mariya Muzychuk, who boasts a 2550 rating and is one of the favourites to win the tournament. Pairings of the third round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating,
Round 2 Game 2: Fighting chess at the World Cup
Aronian withdraws from the second round due to health reasons Friday, July 16th, 2021 – The second game of round two at the World Cup began this afternoon with a huge absence: world’s number 5 player, GM Levon Aronian, decided to withdraw from the event due to health reasons. As a result, his opponent GM Bobby Cheng advanced directly to the third round. Aronian took to social media to explain his decision: Cheng was kind enough to pop-in to the press centre to give us his thoughts on the match with Aronian and his upcoming third-round encounter. At 3 pm sharp, Fight Night MMA promoter Kamil Gadzhiev played the first move for GM Magnus Carlsen on Board 1, clearly a prelude of what the round was eventually going to bring. Although some matches went to the tiebreak, most players came to the Galaxy Center with a clear idea in mind: fight until the end to seal the deal. The World Champion, who won the first game of the two yesterday with Black, displayed once again his fantastic technique grinding down his opponent in a tricky knight vs bishop endgame with an equal number of pawns. Although it was probably a draw at some point, these endings are generally quite tricky and GM Sasa Martinovic blundered first with 53…Bh6 (53…Kd7 giving up the pawn is a draw even a pawn down), and then 54…axb5? which is definitely losing. The computer holds the endgame with 54…Kd7 but it’s not easy at all for a human player. Carlsen will now face GM Aryan Tari in the third round, in a match between Norway’s top two players. One of the first games to finish was GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave’s win over GM Elshan Moradiabadi. As the first game ended in a draw, the world-class French player needed a win to advance to the next round. In a fine positional game, Maxime took advantage of a few small mistakes in his opponent’s set-up. After 13…Nb6 (instead of …Ne7) Moradiabadi was already under serious pressure, and the nice manoeuvre 15.Bf4! e5 16.Be3 secured the d5 square for White. A few moves later Black’s position crumbled. Maxime was kind enough to explain his thought process in a brief postgame interview. Other favourites to qualify directly to the third round are GM’s Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Grischuk (pictured below), Anish Giri and Sergei Karjakin, while top players Mamedyarov, Firouzja, or Lenier Dominguez among others will have to return tomorrow for the tie-breaks. In the women’s group, most of the rating favourites advanced to the third round by scoring an on-demand win today after their first game draw in the match. Pre-event top-seed GM Aleksandra Goryachkina (2596) scored a clear 2-0 against WGM Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova and advanced to the third round, while second seed Kateryna Lagno (2558) also qualified by defeating WIM Teodora Injac by 1.5-0.5. Both of them will face strong +2400 opponents in their next games. Also qualifying to the third round was top-rated Russian GM Alina Kashlinskaya, who defeated Cuba’s IM Lisandra Ordaz in a fine positional game. It seemed that Ordaz, with Black, had equalised after the opening, but she lashed out with the thematic pawn-lever 13… c5? at the wrong moment. Kashlinskaya captured the d-pawn and went on to grind down her opponent in a technical ending with an extra exchange. In her post-game interview, Alina gave us her thoughts on the game and her upcoming third-round challenge with WGM Alisa Galliamova, who is also from Russia. One of the best games of the afternoon in the women’s group was played by GM Alexandra Kosteniuk who defeated her second-round opponent WGM Deysi Cori in a wonderful ending. Although an exchange down, Kosteniuk manoeuvred her two bishops and created a passed center pawn. Her opponent was powerless, unable to stop detain the advance of the pawn, while Kosteniuk used her bishops and active king to block the long-distance attacks by Cori’s lone rook. A great display of technique! Kosteniuk gave us her thoughts in the post-game interview. Unfortunately, both of the Indonesian players, Medina Warda Aulia and Irine Kharisma Sukandar, although feeling well and having had negative testing, decided to withdraw from the second round as a safety measure with regard to the rest of the players. As a result, their opponents, GM Harika Dronavalli from India and GM Valentina Gunina from Russia, also advanced directly to the third round. Pairings of the second round tiebreaks, to be played tomorrow afternoon, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating, will qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, in addition to winning the 110.000 USD first prize (80.000 USD for the runner-up). Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE), Chess Federation of Russia, Russian Ministry of Sports, and Government of Krasnodar Krai. Partners: Gazprom – general partner Nornickel – general partner PhosAgro – general partner Chessable – event’s partner Aeroflot – CFR’s partner Educational centre “Sirius”
Chess.com acquires broadcast rights for major FIDE events through 2023
Chess.com is the first official broadcast partner of the Women’s World Chess Championship cycle and the 2022 Women’s World Chess Championship as part of a historic multi-year agreement with the International Chess Federation (FIDE). FIDE is hosting the first-ever Women’s World Cup with the best female players competing for a $676,250 prize fund. This agreement underscores Chess.com’s commitment towards growing, supporting, and strengthening strong chess talent within the female chess community. “We’re more excited than ever about highlighting the talent in top-level women’s chess,” said Chief Chess Officer Danny Rensch. “The Women’s Speed Chess Championship was awesome and featured the highest-ever prize fund for a women’s online competition, and we’re thrilled to partner with FIDE to help shed a spotlight on the biggest stages of women’s chess.” The agreement includes broadcast rights for all major FIDE events in which GMs Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, and other chess celebrities will compete head-to-head for prize pools in the millions of dollars. Confirmed guest commentators on Chess.com’s broadcasts of these events include five-time former world champion GM Viswanathan Anand, 2018 World Championship Challenger and world number two Fabiano Caruana, GM Robert Hess, and GM Daniel Naroditsky. The FIDE deal means that in addition to the Women’s World Championship, Chess.com’s broadcast coverage will include live player cams for the FIDE World Cup, the Chess Olympiad, the 2023 World Chess Championship, the World Rapid & Blitz Championships, and more. Chess.com had previously acquired the broadcast rights for the 2022 Candidates tournament and was the first company to acquire broadcast rights for the 2021 FIDE World Championship Match. These broadcasts will include streams in the French, German, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, and Turkish languages. “FIDE is excited about this new agreement,” said FIDE Director-General Emil Sutovsky. “Its scope ensures a wider exposure for our official events, and in particular we are happy to partner with Chess.com to promote the best women chess players. It is the first time the rights for top women competitions are getting acquired, and we are genuinely proud that the vision championed by FIDE is getting shared by a major online platform. We spare no effort to constantly improve the coverage of our events, making it accessible for both hardcore chess fans and players who just discover the magic of the game. Our partnership with Chess.com will take this experience to a new height, and we are committed to making it distinctively special,” Sutovsky said. Chess.com has become the top global chess broadcaster through its channels on Chess.com/TV, Twitch, and YouTube. Earlier this year, Chess.com’s PogChamps influencer chess tournament reached 28 million live views among the highly coveted 18-34 advertiser demographic. The peak concurrent viewership in the chess category reached 375,000 making chess one of the Top 10 most popular games on Twitch during that time. “We have been, and continue to be, incredibly proud to support women’s chess in all ways,” said Austin Gasparini, Chess.com’s Director of Business Development. “From increasing the prize fund of this year’s 2021 FIDE Chess.com Women’s Speed Chess Championship to be the richest online women’s chess prize fund in history, to striking this historic deal with FIDE to cover all of the most critical women’s tournaments in professional chess, Chess.com is dedicated to growing the game for players and fans equally around the world. We look forward to innovating and investing in our chess coverage to maximize women’s visibility and participation in the sport in the coming years.” Chess.com has hired 5x sports Emmy award winner Alex Brewer as Director of Programming to support the growing popularity in chess entertainment. Formerly an associate manager at ESPN, Brewer’s career spanned content creation and production operations roles working on key company priorities such as ESPN+, College Gameday, and SportsCenter. Before his departure, he worked within ESPN’s Programming and Acquisitions group, specifically supporting original content creation for ESPN+ and 30 for 30 brands. At Chess.com, Brewer will oversee the day-to-day operations of chess programming and oversee the production of a wide range of events for a growing audience of fans worldwide. “My mission now shifts from a career in sports media to the amazing world of chess, where I will strive to support this great community with the best content and events possible.” About Chess.com Founded in 2005, Chess.com is the world’s largest chess site and leader in chess news, lessons, events, and entertainment. Nearly 10 million chess games are played on the site every day. Visit Chess.com to play, learn, and connect with chess—the world’s most popular game. Media Contact: Laura NystromPublic Relations Managerpress@chess.com